Health is wealth

Dead Prez has a song called Be Healthy
It was inspirational to hear a cool hip-hop group rhyming about eating fresh, whole foods and exercising while rejecting alcohol, cigarettes, OTC medicines, and animal products. I first heard this at a time when I was decidedly abstaining from drugs and alcohol, and becoming very passionate about environmentalism, vegetarianism, and farming/gardening. I hope you enjoy the track as much as I do.

For a while now I have been hoping to write a list of the "essential ingredients of my Good Life"--foods and other things that I have made part of my routine. I think it might be useful to share lists like this, though I'm not sure why... Here goes... (in no particular order)

+ Avocado
+ Almonds, raw & unsalted
+ Mangoes, fresh
+ Broccoli & Carrots, raw (mixed with almonds!)
+ Basil
+ Avocado & Tuna (no mayo!)
+ Honey, honey, and more honey!!! (the all-curing panacea)
+ Peanut butter, crunchy
+ Pumpkin pie, chocolate, & cookies made by C
+ More avocado
+ Chipotle

"Who run it?!"

This is the route C and I ran today in 3.5 hours--just short of 19 miles if you don't include walking around Giant Eagle looking for chocolate samples and DVDs...haha! C hasn't run more than 90 minutes since last April, and then busted out with this 210 minute monster? She's crazy--crazy beautiful. Long runs are fun because, as C has convinced me, it is necessary to reward oneself. So, a great (big) lunch, some miscellaneous shopping, a terrific dinner including sweet Italian sausage, and Graeter's ice cream.

Also, we got some seeds started today! This included two varieties of tomatoes, two types of peppers, creeping thyme, and basil. I set up a 4' shop light with daylight spectrum bulbs in the basement. Hopefully the cool temperature down there doesn't stifle the germination of our lil' buddies. The shop light was already in the house. Some chain to hang the light, 2 bulbs, and the starting trays cost around $25. I'll post a picture of the set up when plants start pokin' out of the soil.

I'm getting pretty excited about life including warmer temperatures, bike riding and gardening with C, skateboarding, and playing with Aldocho.

The Great Near-Blizzard of '08

Fun times during a Level 2 Snow Emergency.