How to: Sun Tea

The sun being out always makes me want copious amounts of iced tea. When I worked at the mall, I loved getting those Venti Iced Green teas from Starbucks...YUM! That is an expensive habit when you drink as much tea as I do, especially since you can brew a large amount of tea without boiling any water!

My mom always made sun tea in the summer using tea bags, which is fine if that is the type of tea you like. I prefer loose leaf tea, so I'm going to make mine using a tea ball. I got mine at Teavana for $13 but it does not matter which type you use as long as it can hold a good amount of tea.

Start off by spooning in your tea! I am using a Teavana Perfect Teaspoon (Can you tell I like Teavana? It is tea heaven!). Fill your tea ball up to almost to the top. The tea leaves will expand when steeping so they need room to!

This is Hibiscus Ginger herbal tea from Chuck's Produce.

Fill up your pitcher with water. Water: it must be city water (preferably filtered) or bottled purified water. There is a risk of bacteria growing in the water since it is not being boiled if you use well water or water from another source. (If you have questionable water, play it safe and just boil it, fill your pitcher with tea ball inside, brew for the specified time for your type of tea, and toss it in the fridge) Your pitcher needs to be a substantially sized CLEAR pitcher. I'm using my Takeya pitcher, which is 66 oz. Those large jars you can get at department stores with the spout on the bottom do nicely as well. Preferably your container has a lid since you will be putting it outside.

Put the tea ball in the tea! Mine is a little tricky because I have to maneuver the chain into a screw on lid. This tea has a high pigment, so you can see it start brewing right away:

Pretty!

Now put the tea outside somewhere sunny. I put mine on our patio ledge.

Even though it looks like it is brewing on its own, you need to let the sun do its magic! After the tea has been sunbathing for 3 - 4 hours, it will look like this:

You can add sweetener now if you like, but I prefer to add it to the glass. Shake up and it is ready to chill in the fridge or serve over ice. I took a picture of the finished result in my kitchen window so it would be back lit so you can see the tea better:

I really wanted to be able to have some variety so I brewed up some green tea as well. Here are the results:

Moroccan mint green tea from Chuck's Produce

I love flavoring mine with organic sugar or honey. A trick you can do if you are wanting to serve your tea over ice is to pour some of your tea in an ice tray and freeze it, that way your tea does not get diluted as your ice melts.

What is your favorite iced tea?

The sun brings out the crazy in me.

Or rather, the sun "activates" my bipolar mania. So here I have been, with a ton of energy and motivation. I feel like creating, cleaning, writing blog posts, cooking, shopping, trading my newly paid off car... This may sound amazing, but it comes at a price. As soon as the clouds come back, I will crash.

So, in order to manage it and prevent myself from doing anything too impulsive (like spending money we don't have or trading my car for a crappy one), Hubby Dearest has control of the debit cards, I'm trying to stick to a routine (FlyLady), and exercise, which helps keep my mood stabilized. Blogging and cooking are healthy outlets for all this excess energy I have, so expect to see more blogs until the weather gets gray again!

Vegan / Paleo Tasty Green Monster Smoothie

I saw this pinned on Pinterest from Hell if I Gnaw, and was inspired to make my own single serving smoothie from fresh ingredients instead of frozen and without the protein powder (I hate the taste, plus I don't have any!). Here is what I came up with:

All of the ingredients I kind of guesstimated and just put in what looked good. The more berries, the better! First, I put about 1 Cup of vanilla almond milk. Then, three heaping tablespoons of ground flax seed (YUM, Omega 3's!). Then I layered in baby spinach (I ran out of just spinach, so I picked it out of my 50/50 Spring mix lol), fresh blueberries and sliced fresh strawberries. The original recipe says to leave the stems and leaves on the strawberries for extra fiber and nutrients, but I had already sliced up all of my strawberries so they would be easier to grab and give to Audrey to eat. I blended it up and tasted it and it was too sour, so I added a whole banana (the original recipe said put in 1/2 a banana, but I was going by the picture more than anything and didn't notice).

YUM!

Berry Monster Smoothie

1/2 C Sweetened Vanilla Almond Milk

3 T Ground Flax Seed

1/4 C Fresh Baby Spinach

1 C Fresh Blueberries

1 C Fresh Strawberries

1 Banana

Blend and enjoy!

How I feed my super-picky daughter

My daughter just turned two a month ago. She is the queen of grazing. Also, there is NO way of getting her to eat something she doesn't want to eat at that moment. Begging, pleading, bargaining, putting a small piece of food in her mouth while it is open...nothing works (although seeing her spit out food and shout, "EWWW, GROSS!" is pretty hilarious). I am left with one option: make sure everything she DOES like to eat is as nutrient dense as possible.

Step one: experiment with different foods because you never know what will be accepted or rejected. Through this, I know that Audrey likes: spinach, berries, pasta, yogurt, kefir, cheese, almond milk, most fruits, French fries, cheerios, toast, granola, nut butters, muffins, and dried seaweed. Not a very long list. Any time I find something that she will eat, I end up buying tons of it (for example, Earths Best organic mini waffles, those have been a breakfast staple lately). Audrey also prefers to eat finger foods (she CAN eat with a spoon, but she doesn't like to), so any time I see something that looks like she might try it, I get it.

Step two: cram in nutrients wherever you can. Audrey loves fruit, especially berries. Blueberries are full of vitamins and antioxidants, raspberries have soluble fiber, bananas are rich in potassium. By picking the most nutrient rich fruits, I can at least make sure she is getting some good out of them. Plus, blueberries are fun to eat!

Audrey's pediatrician suggested that I get packaged muffin mix and shred zucchini in it. It makes the muffins more moist and adds veggies to her diet. This can also be done with carrots or sweet potatoes. A few days ago I made these muffins got Audrey using Trader Joe's banana bread mix with zucchini. Audrey called them "cupcakes" and inhaled them. Win! I've also made these delicious blueberry zucchini greek yogurt muffins from The Little Spork. AMAZING! You have all the vitamin goodness from the zucchini and blueberries, plus the protein punch from the greek yogurt! The lemon zest adds a little tang and enhances the blueberry flavor and the yogurt makes the muffins delightfully moist. Can you tell I ate a few myself?

A "kid food" that gets a bad rap is French fries. Yes, fast food fries are fried in nasty oil and loaded with salt. Potatoes are high in vitamin A. Sweet potatoes are even better! We have been making our own French fries by frying them in a deep fryer in healthy oil. YUM! We definitely need to try frying up some sweet potato fries.

Step three: make things easy. Trying to keep everything healthy can be a pain. Washing and cutting fruit is time consuming. When I first buy all my produce, I soak it for an hour in a sink full of water plus 1/2 cup of vinegar. This effectively washes the fruit because the slight acidity eats off anything gross plus it makes produce last longer! I then dry it all off and put the blueberries and blackberries directly in mason jars, then de-stem and slice the strawberries and load them up in the jars. The mason jars (or any glass container) help the fruit stay fresh longer.

It takes a bit of time once you get your groceries home, but it is worth it. When Audrey is hungry, I just pull out a jar and pour the fruit on her plate! I do the same prep with vegetables because I was having a hard time remembering to use them. I lined the bottom of my veggie drawer and as soon as the veggies are clean and dry, they go right in the drawer! Being out where I can see them and being organized helps me remember what I have and what I need to use whereas when they were left in their produce bags, they would go bad before I had a chance to use them because I couldn't see them. Added bonus: Audrey can pull open the produce drawer because it is at her height. She sees all the veggies and gets curious about them. Broccoli, for example, is something she is inspired to eat after peeking in the veggie drawer.

Hyper-organized...I may just have OCD.

Tomorrow I plan on doing some baking and smoothie making, so stay tuned for another post! (Am I planning on sharing this on Pinterest? Why yes! Yes I am!)

Just some ramblings.

Hello!

I am one happy lady! School is going well...I'm super excited about my major. Addiction counseling definitely feels like the right choice. Parenting is...well...it has its ups and downs. Audrey is a stubborn as her mommy, which is frustrating to me at times but I know that her tenacity will be an asset when she is older.

Random: right now, I am completely obsessed with my Takeya pitchers, especially the fruit infuser attachment. So far I have used my pitchers to make berry infused water, citrus infused water, strawberry lemonade, sangria, and peach iced tea. Here are my lovely drinks:

Sangria

Strawberries and blueberries

Delicious! They have definitely been helping me drink more fluids. I have had a problem with that recently...or rather I have only been drinking coffee and Red Bull. You know that warning on energy drinks that says "Not for use by children, women who are pregnant or nursing, and those sensitive to caffeine."? My bipolar makes me sensitive to caffeine... OOPS! So I've decided to cut back my caffeine intake, and this is helping! I've looked up more delicious fruit infused water recipes on Pinterest so I will be trying those out as well...hopefully creating my own as well!

Other obsessions of mine as of late: tie-dye. For some reason I cannot explain, I desperately want these pants:

I really want to get one of those tie-dye kits, or maybe try bleach-dying. I'm just a little afraid of how it might turn out. Maybe I will get brave in a few days!

Anyway, I think I have wasted enough time away from my homework!

Have an awesome day!

What it's like to have bipolar disorder.

First of all, I don't say that I "am" bipolar. Bipolar is a medical condition I have, not what I am. People don't go around saying "I am diabetes!" or "I am cancer!" so please be aware of the distinction.

Second, bipolar means that in addition to having prolonged times of normal moods, my moods uncontrollably will shift to either manic (high mood) or depressive. These shifts last for an extended period. I'm not happy one minute and sad the next. These moods are persistent. They can last from several days to several weeks before either transitioning back to normal or to the opposite mood.

I have Bipolar Type 2, so I don't experience "full on" mania (which can cause extreme delusions and very risky behavior). I experience what is called "hypomania." I still call it "manic" though. When I am manic, I experience it in one of two ways. The first way is amazing. I feel like I am on top of the world. Imagine the best mood you have every been in, like the most amazing thing happened to you. Times that by 10. That is how I feel. I don't even need much sleep because I have TONS of energy. I believe I am untouchable. I can do anything! This is when I get what are called "big ideas." If you have known me for a while, or if you have been my friend on facebook, you may have witnessed some of these moments. Let me give you some examples of these big ideas: I'm going to teach! I'm going to change my major to Addiction Counselor! I'm going to go back to retail, my work restrictions be damned! I'm going to start my own business! I'm going to sell my nice car and buy a piece of shit BMW, because BMWs are COOL! I'm going to buy and finance a car ON MY BOYFRIEND'S BIRTHDAY! The list goes on... Pretty much any of the big life changes or tasks that you have seen me take on that fell through or just plain didn't make sense...that was the mania talking. I'm also very impulsive. Shopping is dangerous for me. I used to buy hundreds of dollars of stuff from work and the mall and sneak it into the house.

                                                   Too much dopamine. WHEEEEEEEEE!

The second type of mania is not fun at all. I have the high energy of the first type of mania. Only instead of being elated and overly optimistic, everything and everyone is irritating as hell. Irritating like nails on a chalkboard. When I was working I would cope by doing work in the backroom (organizing, filing, sorting shipment), but I realize now that the times when I was really hard on my employees were the times I was in this type of mania. I can't imagine that I was an easy boss to work for. Now it is difficult when I feel like this, because I have a two-year-old that is establishing her individuality. She throws tantrums when something upsets her because she doesn't have the words yet to describe how she feels. I have to just breathe and walk away and talk myself out of the irritability that I am feeling. It is extremely challenging. I may be able to curb acting on any impulses to spank my daughter but I haven't quite learned how to keep from saying mean things to my husband. Also when I feel like this I am highly paranoid. At work it would manifest as I constantly thought I was being spied on by people from corporate (even though I wasn't doing anything wrong). Now I worry about getting kicked out of our apartment, getting kicked off the assistance we are on, getting pulled over, anything. Even though I don't do anything wrong, I am paranoid that someone will find something wrong. It is the worst kind of edge to be on.

Now for depression. Where to begin... It feels as if there is no point in doing anything because I'm doomed to failure anyway. I sleep...a lot. I'm just always exhausted. It is hard because I think a lot about what could have been, especially with my career in retail. The worst of it I experienced when I was pregnant and right before Audrey turned 1. I did not want to live anymore. The timing was horrible...I was on a hormonal roller coaster from being pregnant and breastfeeding. Stress at work was at an all time high. I thought I was going through post-partum depression. Unfortunately, before I was diagnosed, I thought that when I was manic (the first type) that was my normal mood, so everything else felt like depression by comparison. It is really hard to explain, but the people I worked with saw my behavior get really erratic. I was grasping at straws...hoping for someone to take away the stress because I honestly could not handle it. Death felt like a viable option. (DON'T WORRY! Now I have tools to handle when I start to feel like this! I also haven't felt like this since I've been diagnosed and put on meds.)

January 6, 2012 was the day my husband took me to the hospital and I began my path towards recovery. He helps me be better every day. I am so thankful for his understanding and empathy. He is my voice of reason when I am impulsive or have big ideas. He cheers me up when I am feeling blue. He understands when I just can't deal with being around people. He has stayed home from school or bailed on his friends to stay with me when I need him around. Without him, I don't know that I could make it.