I can’t believe another year is coming to a close.  I love calendars. I love lists. I love clean slates.  A new year really gets me excited and all set to plan. I was born for new years resolutions.  This is a BIG new year, the end of a decade.  So much happened for me from 2000-2009. I grew up, I became this person that I am. I turned 30 in 2009. I will admit, it scared me a little. 30 still seemed “old” to me. If I was 20 something, I was still able to grasp onto my college strings, I was still a kid, I still partied, I was still “cool”.  But reflecting back, I can say whole heartedly that I am happy to be done with my 20s.  I was not very kind to myself in my 20s.  I did a lot of stupid things. I drank way too much and wasted way too much of my hard earned waitressing dollars.  I exhausted a lot of time worrying about what others thought of me and way too much time thinking that if I could just lose 5 more lbs everything would fall into place, everything would just be perfect.  I guess that is what your 20s are about when you are a woman though. I don’t have one gal in my life who hasn’t wasted precious time worrying about those last 5 lbs.  I think that in your 30s you are more confident in who you are and I look forward to that.  I know that in this last year, becoming Harper’s mom, I really found who I was meant to be.  I cannot express how life changing having a baby is. Friends that had kids always talked about their babies and how amazing it is and I would sort of roll my eyes in my head. I loved my dogs, I understood   But no I didn’t. There is nothing more life altering than becoming someone’s mom and I welcome this new decade with open arms.  I have a great husband, a beautiful daughter, a body that does everything I demand of it, a roof over my head and food in my fridge. What more could I ever ever hope for? 

I have a few goals for 2009:
1. Run 1500 miles
2. Run a 5K in less than 24:00
3. Run a half marathon in less that 1:58
4. Practice yoga and/or pilates at least 2 time a week
5. Really make a go at getting monicaonthego.com out there and my readership up, if I can make a living off of this website, then I can stay home with Harper longer and nothing would make me happier. 

What about you bloggy friends.  Are you ready for a new decade?  Any stand out goals for 2010?

* Don’t forget to go enter my yummy Boomi bar giveaway below!

Yesterday at Whole Foods I picked up a bunch of greeny samples for smoothies. I want to make sure I get as many veggies in these morning smoothies as possible. Today I tried:

This has alfalfa, barley, oat grass, wheat grass, parsley powder, collard powder, kale powder, broccoli powder, spinach powder and then I added in spinach, berries, banana, chocolate soy milk and a 1/2 scoop of protein powder and then some PB at the end, so it ended up chunky

Everything tastes better in a beer glass


Today’s concoction was much more vitaminy and veggie tasting than yesterdays since it just had spinach in it. But i liked it and I want that veggish taste.  So I will give this packet of mix in an A, but hey I haven’t tried any of the others yet, so stay tuned.

We’ve discovered that Harper likes Popsicles.  I mean really likes popsicles.

Oh this weeks Somethin’ pretty is really pretty!  I love little knick knacky bowls. I buy sushi dishes a lot from places like sur la table and use them to put jewelry, etc in.  Look what I got from Elm Studio on etsy! 

I love it!  I picked it b/c it said Naturally Sweet and she surprised me by putting Harper’s name on it.  Sweet for sure.  It looks flat in the photo, but is actually a bowl.


Once I ordered something similar to this for a wedding gift and they loved it:




Erin is supremely talented and takes special orders, you should definitely check her out. 

Harper and I braved the cold for a trip to Whole Foods and TJs today!  I needed coffee from TJs and I wanted to go to Whole Foods and get some of the Amazing Grass for my Green Monster trials. I ended up buying a bunch of different single serving packets to try them out and see which I like best before I invest $40 in a canister.  I went for those 2 things, but ended up with a lot more of course!  Looking forward to roasting some of those brussel sprouts, I have never been very successful at veggie roasting, any tips? I picked up some of my fav frozen foods – Quorn Guyere patties and TJs chicken quesadillas.  Some of my fav yogurts – Liberte and Wallaby Down Unders.  And I got a bag of chicken meatballs from Whole foods, they are asiago and fennel!  Yum.

This morning I tried my hand at my first Green Monster!  I dusted off the blender and brought it out of its high hiding cabinet.  Been along time since I made margaritas, which is really the only thing I ever use a blender for.  I have a little hand blender that I use to make smoothies, but I didn’t think it’d handle the spinach well.

For my green monster I used a handful of spinach, about a handful of frozen mixed berries, 3/4 of a banana, some Trader Hoes PB, some soy milk and a little chocolate organic milk.  It turned out really well and I shared it with Harper. She was a big fan.


Harp has a cold, so no gym for me today. Boo.  I hate when she is sick, poor kid woke up with boogers all over her face and a bad stuffy nose.  So, I will have to resort to a workout DVD today.  Maybe a short run when G gets home from work.  I am going to run to Whole Foods and find some of the amazing grass stuff for my monsters, I am going to try and have them for breakfast most days.  I definitely want to work out a way to get more veggies in there.  What do you put in your Green Monster?

We liked Food Inc.  It was what I expected.  Very well done and thought provoking. The problem with movies like that is that they are preaching to the choir. If you watch Food Inc you are likely not the type chowing down on all the processed crap, you are a more thoughtful consumer. I wish there was a way to make people watch it who truly no nothing about our factory farming nation.

I got a nice package in the mail from the fine folks over at Divine Foods.    Divine Foods is an all-natural energy bar manufacturer, family owned and operated and is located in Escondido, California.  They make Prana Bars, Supercharger bars and Boomi Bars.  All their bars are free of wheat, cane sugar, GMO’s, meat, eggs and peanuts ensuring the products are gluten-free, soy-free and vegetarian.  I couldn’t get over the amount of flavors they have!  I decided to try one of each bars before doing this giveaway.

First up was the Perfect Pumpkin Boomi Bar:

This was a drool worthy bar and I will definitely be stocking up on them.  Just a few ingridients: Pumpkin Seeds, Honey, Dates, Raisins, Apricots, Cranberries, Crisp Rice, Amaranth, & Salt added up to such a wonderful texture and taste. I was very surprised this bar only has 3 grams a sugar b/c it was really sweet. 


As I said before I am a huge fan of coconut. I liked this bar, it reminded me a lot of the raw revolution coconut bars.  Again, very sweet for not much sugar.  It’s mostly a raw bar except for the nuts and seeds which require cooking.

I had the organic energy Supercharger bar next. I really enjoyed the mango flavor, it reminded me a lot of dried mango I have bought before.  I can’t say I noticed any big energy jump, but it was still very yummy.

The Boomi bar was my favorite.  I just loved the various nuts and seeds in it. 

So now it’s your turn.  Want to win some?  I will pick 2 winners on Saturday around noon.  You have a few ways to enter, make sure to leave a seperate comment for each entry:
1. Leave a comment telling me what flavor/type of bar you want to try, visit their website to see the different products
2.  Add me to your blog roll
3. Give this contest a shoutout on your blog
4. Send an email out telling your friends about the contest, copy me- mnowac@gmail.com

Good luck!

After all the junk I consumed over the past week I was ready for some veggies, so I decided to make a veggie lasagna for dinner tonight. 

First I put down a layer of lasagna noodles. On top of that I poured a can of diced tomatoes (the kind with oregano and basil in it) and chopped mushrooms. I put the mushrooms in the Cuisinart b/c I hate chopping veggies.

Next I took a small container of light ricotta cheese and added 1 egg, garlic salt, oregano and diced dried onions and mixed together.

I then layered the ricotta cheese mix on top of another layer of noodles and added some spaghetti sauce.

Next I chopped up some artichokes hearts in the Cuisinart.

Layered the hearts with some defrosted frozen spinach and added some light mozzarella cheese.

Next another layer of noodles and I added on zucchini and summer squash.

Last another layer of noodles and some more cheese.

I then put the lasagna into the oven for 1 hour at 350 degrees.  You know its done when you can stick a fork through the squash easily, that’s why I always put the squash layer (or sometimes I use parsnips too) on top.

While the lasagna cooked Gary and I did a yoga DVD.  We got all the way through it, but Harper kept trying to play along too.  She was under me for all my downward dogs, pulling on my legs   Ignore Gary’s shirt, he likes to wear his tshirts until they fall apart.


The final product turned out really well. 




Gary and I are snuggling down to watch Food Inc now. I am prepared to be depressed.  I have tried to be a vegetarian before, but I really am going to make more of an effort to eat a lot less meat in the new year.  Everyone in the US needs to be forced to watched this movie and Fast Food Nation.  It’s crazy what has become of our food.  Ugh.

Speaking of depressing. I read The Road:

Ack. On one hand I loved it, I read the whole thing in one day, but on the other hand I just hated it. It is so so so sad. It just devastated me.  Have you read it? Have you seen the movie? I wanted to see the movie really badly, but I am totally haunted by some of the cannibal scenes in the book and I’m not sure I want to see them played out on screen!  If you’ve seen the movie, let me know what you thought.  I also finished Shutter Island by Dennis Lehane.  It was really trippy and I can’t wait to see the movie adaptation.

What’s the best book you’ve read lately?

Woohooo boy have I been running around for the past week. Xmas takes us a long time in our family.  We go to the husband’s dads house on Xmas eve, then to his uncle on his dads side that night. On Xmas we go to his moms, then to his aunt on his moms side that night. Then we have to get down to KY to do Xmas with my family.  That’s a 7 hour drive.  This year we left on Sat b/c my sister Melanie and her kids were in town and I wanted to make sure I saw them b/c they hadn’t met the baby yet.  We stayed until Monday and drove back last night.  What a whirlwind, but fun was had by all. I think I probably gained 5 lbs!  Oh well, tis the season.  Fonzie and I are going out for a snowy run here pretty soon.  I love running in the snow, it’s such a great Quad burner.  I hope all of you had a great Xmas. I am really looking forward to the new year. I am trying to work out in my head a daily schedule for the blog.  For instance, maybe I will do product reviews on Monday, Somethin’ pretty on Tuesday, Crockpot recipes on Wed, etc.  I am going to make some veggie lasagna later today and will put up the recipe and come back for my Prana bar giveaway.  Hugs to all.

So sorry for the delay, I got caught up in real life, lol.  Here are the winners of the Heart Thrive Giveaway. I will be back tonight with a Prana/Boomi bar review and new giveaway, so please check back.  I hope everyone had a nice holiday, Harper loved her first Xmas!

12/23/2009 12:52 PM Emily wrote:
Hmmm…now you’ve got me wanting to try the chocolate chip!! Haha I have tried the lemon poppyseed before and thought it wasn’t too bad. Like you said…good for a breakfast in a pinch!…which is almost every morning, being a college student and all!


&

12/23/2009 11:02 PM monica wrote:
I’m dying to try these and I can never find them-the raisin ones look good to me, and apricot and cranberry, and all of them-i’m undecided!
Reply to this

Monica & Emily please email me at mnowac@gmail.com and let me know your mailing address. Thanks for entering everyone and big thanks to the makers of Heart Thrives over at the The Healthy Baking Company!

Harper’s First Xmas. Fun with Peanuts.

Yay, I got somethin’ pretty in the mail today and I am totally stoked. Merry Xmas to me.  Seriously, how pretty is this hat!  Since I live in Cleveland I have a lot of winter hats, so when I came across this shop on Etsy I knew I needed one, Mel’s Belle’s Cloche Hats.  The best part is that the flower matches my winter coat perfect AND (are you ready for this!) the flower is a pin, so you can take it off and wear it on something else!



You have to go to the website  and check out some of the baby hats, oooohh my gosh so cute! I am totally going to get Harper one.


If you like Mel’s hats, you might like some of her other lovely items too!
http://www.loopoverloop.etsy.com/
http://www.aGarnishedLife.etsy.com

So, go take a look and buy yourself somethin’ pretty for Xmas, make sure to tell her Monicaonthego sent you!