"Slumber Party" with Hubby! :)

Cross posted in Foodiscovery

To celebrate my new job, hubby and I decided to have a special chicken dinner. I gave Rena an early, simple dinner of crepes (I make them with coconut oil instead of butter or margarine to cut down on my dairy intake, as I might be slightly lactose intolerant, and to avoid using a product with soy) with some raw tomato and some raw avocado on the the side (she loves them; I don't always have to cook side dishes for her) and then put her to bed. I headed to QFC at the University Village Shopping Center to get kosher chicken, as Whole Foods around here doesn't carry it.

I decided to call my parents on the way. They're three hours earlier, as they live in Cincinnati, but it's ok for me to call them late. They had actually just walked in the door: They'd been out late at the wedding of a local Chabad rabbi's daughter. They reported that there must have been 600 people there and that a bunch of them asked about me. It made me happy to know that so many people in my hometown still think and care about me. Even someone who wasn't at the wedding asked my mom about me recently when she ran into her at a grocery store.

At QFC, I headed to the kosher poultry section. I hadn't seen Empire Organic chicken in ages, but lo and behold, it was there last night! I bought all the drumsticks and left the whole chickens and boneless skinless breasts for others.

Back at home, I preheated the oven to 400 degrees and made a one-dish dinner out of a dozen drumsticks, a couple big bagsful of cremini mushrooms, and a pile of raw cashews; seasoned with salt, red pepper flakes, and a little turmeric; with coconut oil mixed in. Forty minutes later.... Yum! :) Hubby and I ate up all the drumsticks -- we each ate half a dozen and saved some of the other stuff for today.

Then we had fun singing, dancing, joking, and playing around. We do that part of a slumber party most nights, really, but this was special because we were celebrating my new job! :)

It's Official...

...I have a job! :) Now that I've signed the contract I can make a public announcement.

My job is to sell advertisement for Eco-Logica Magazine, a local Spanish/English green living magazine. If you've seen my green living blog, Environmental Tip of the Week, you know this is right up my alley! :) Best of all, I can do this at home on my own time at my leisure. If you have or someone you know has a business in Seattle or that can serve Seattle customers without too much trouble for the environment, Mr. Vazquez (founder and editor of the magazine) and I would be very grateful for your advertising business. Don't worry if you're not yet a "green business"- Showing your support for a green living magazine by advertising in it would be a great first step! :) For now, you may email me at sbedder@gmail.com since I don't have a company email address yet. Please include the word Eco-Logica (with the dash, two words not one word) in your email so I can find it. You can also reach me at 646-243-5420 but we will most likely be exchanging emails anyway so you might as well start off that way. I actually respond to emails better than phone calls nowadays, as it's hard to talk on the phone with Rena at home.

I have also been doing some proofreading for the magazine, and I will be contributing an article for the next edition. I will not be paid for either of those, but I will have one of my websites listed in the magazine as compensation.

This is a great way for me to get into writing about subjects for which I'm passionate! :) The magazine covers the subjects of my three main blogs: The environment, healthy food, and happiness in lifestyle and society.

Music Lesson

Rena, hubby, and I indeed went to see Cady Finlayson & Vita Tanga perform "Spirited Irish Music with a Global Twist" perform tonight at the Ravenna-Eckstein Community Center (the concert I announced yesterday). Their most notable song of the evening was a humorous account of a trip on the A train subway in New York called "This Train Ain't Got No Destination," a sort of Irish rap. Having moved recently from New York -- a block from the A train -- I could really identify with this situation that sounded typical. Cady's mom was visiting her, and they had to take the A train to the airport for the return flight. The driver was new and didn't know which A train it was for a long time. (The A train splits at one point- Some A's go to the airport and others go elsewhere.) So he kept saying the sentence that's the title of the song. What struck me was that, instead of freaking out and worrying about getting to the airport on time (which they did), she chose to see the humor in the situation and, later, turn it into a piece of entertaining music. She told me later that she'd written the song as a gift for her mother.

Acupressure mat- Love it!!!!!

Whole Foods often hosts product demonstrations, and today I got to use a Spoonk acupressure mat. The very nice demonstrator let me try it out on both my feet and my back. I was about ready to buy one right then and there but thank God I restrained myself because it would have cost me almost a hundred dollars!

Free concert tomorrow in Seattle's Ravenna neighborhood!!!!!

Cady Finlayson & Vita Tanga perform "Spirited Irish Music with a Global Twist" at the Ravenna-Eckstein Community Center, Monday, August 29, at 7:30 pm. It's like two blocks from our apartment so we take Rena there often. I spotted a flyer while walking with Rena today.

I'm so glad I'm away from NY! First an earthquake and now Hurricane Irene. My mother-in-law is currently visiting NY -- apparently she'd planned this trip awhile back, before we'd moved -- and she texted to let me know that she's safe, in case we were interested. That was just a joke, though, because I'd just liked her post on Facebook that said not even a flag was blowing in the wind. I like that my MIL likes to joke with me, and I'm glad the hurricane hasn't interfered with her having a good time on her trip.

Sci Fi and Serendipity

On Friday night, I finished reading Rollback by Robert J. Sawyer. This sci fi novel explores a number of major themes and issues, but a seemingly mundane, minor detail in the story caught my attention: Don buying cashews as a special treat for himself. I'd done the exact sane thing earlier in the day, having filled a bag of bulk organic cashews at Whole Foods. I hadn't gotten cashews in quite a while. I love random signs of Divine Providence such as this. What are the chances that I would just "happen" to decide to buy cashews as a special treat for myself, and then later that same day read about a book character doing the same thing?

Rena "Blesses" (Cleans) the Kitchen

Wow, what a great reminder of the importance of having a positive attitude! :) I'm not making Rena clean. Rather, she's crying because she wants more cleaning spray to do more cleaning. She always wants to clean when she sees me cleaning. When I do it in front of her, I emphasize how awesome it is. Sometimes I like to sing and dance while I'm doing it. Even when she's not in the room (when she's sleeping), I find that emphasizing to myself how awesome it is and singing and dancing while I'm doing it really change my own attitude toward cleaning. When Rena does it, too, I heap ginormous praises on her and thank her profusely. I tell her what an awesome job she's doing, even if she misses half the mess, because whatever she does is a heck of a lot better than not doing anything at all and it's important that she's helping and working as part of a team, doing what she can do at her age. She's just 22 months old but she already sees how special and important it is to work to keep your home pleasant and comfortable to live in.

What does LOL mean?

Most of us know that LOL means "laugh out loud." Imagine, though, that you're a man getting on in years who's not really in touch with modern technology. You've never heard of LOL. Your wife tells you that your daughter says LOL and wants to know what you think it means. What would be your first thoughts?

The man is my father. He thought LOL meant "lots of love." I'm so glad that he knows how much I love him, though I live so far away.:)

What if every time we wrote LOL on Facebook or Twitter we meant "lots of love"? What if we all actually had lots of love for everyone? What if, today, you show a little love to someone who needs it? See this post from awhile ago for a simple, practical way to spread the love.

The reason I decided to restart this blog today...

...is that Rena and I had an AWESOME time today at Dahl Playfield! :)

The wading pool was in use today, and Rena had tonsa funsa walking around in it. Someone had a beach ball and said she could play with it for a bit. She loves balls of all types.

Later, someone on the grass started playing an instrument that looked like a violin but smaller, and Rena and I became her audience. The player said Rena could touch it, and when I asked what instrument it was, she said it was a ukulele. I told her I wasn't up on my instruments, as I don't play any. She said she never thought she could play an instrument because she thought she wouldn't have the patience, but a friend had a vision of her playing a ukulele and took her to a store that sold them. They're easy to play, she said, and low-cost, as far as instruments go. I was about ready to go buy one myself. Hubby has a guitar but I would have to start with something really easy. He doesn't know how to play it yet, though he does play piano well.

Rena was playing in the playground when she spotted a feather that she wanted. Two slightly older girls had it, but when one of them saw that Rena wanted it, she handed it to Rena, saying, "She can have it; she's our friend." I said, "That's so sweet!"

At the end of an already very fun afternoon, Rena decided to hang out with some soccer players at the end of their practice. They were about to do a cheer for their team, and one of them said Rena was so cute and she could be in the middle of their cheer. They had a lot of soccer balls, and Rena wanted them all!

Rena was all tired out in her stroller on the way home, but it was a good kind of tired, the kind you feel after a full, satisfying day of activity.

The Daily Yay! Restart

I've realized that writing a quick blog post daily doesn't take up that much of my valuable time, and it's a good way to spend my time. I can write a yay in just a few minutes, if necessary. I might tell you about something yayful that happened during the day or that I have in my life (something for which I am grateful, as per the Gratitude to Bliss Project). I might give a tip on being yayful yourself or on spreading the yays. I might actually interview and write about a yayful, inspiring person. I might write multiple posts in a single day if I'm inspired to do so, instead of writing one long post. I might post a yayful quote, picuture, or video.

So guess what the very first yay of the restart of The Daily Yay is? I'm so happy that I'm restarting my blogs! :) Writing makes me so happy because it's my creative outlet. It's how I express myself. It makes me feel accomplished. Creativity is so important because it's what makes us human beings with souls, and not robots. Creating means emulating God, the Creator of the Universe, and emulating God is the best way to get close to Him because it helps us increase our understanding of Him. The Book of Genesis says that we were created in God's image. We don't literally look like God since God isn't physical, but instead with have Godly attributes, such as the ability to create. See this article for more info about what it means to be created in God's image. (These are all Jewish concepts, of course.)