I hardly know where to start to catch up.  Hmmm..

1. I got a job.  Hooray!  I will be doing some basic bookkeeping and payroll for a small company on the other side of Des Moines.  It is just 5 hours a week and I will be working on Monday while David is home to watch the kids.  Perfect!

2. The girls and I went "shopping" at Helping Hands the other day (a free thrift store) and they had cases of bananas available.  I think I must have taken about 10 bunches of bananas!  I am going to freeze most of them and they will be great in green smoothies with fresh fruit this summer - yum!  I also picked up a nice pair of shoes for wearing to work and some more tops that will be nice too.  Didn't see any pants there though - that's a bit of a bummer since I only have one pair of dress slacks.  I didn't ask about dress code, but it is just two ladies that run the place and one of them was wearing jeans.  I won't even be having any customer contact so I probably can get away with nice jeans too.  I will wear my slacks the first week and get that clarified.

Anyway, I am pretty excited about having a day where I get to take a break from being mommy, make a little extra money for us, and get to rub some brain cells together. :)

3.  I don't think I remembered to post the good news that we managed to get our house refinanced.  It was crazy!  We actually have a Freddie Mac loan so we qualified to do a stated income (which means no verification) refinance with only $400 up front.  But, somehow, only my name is on the mortgage.  So I had to be employed in order to qualify.  Yikes!  This was back in November we were trying to pull this together.  Anyway, I discovered that I could be self-employed if I had a business license that I could fax them to verify the business.  Well, I still have the license I was given to run my consignment business from back in 2008, so we were able to get refinanced based on that.  Guess that made my one-shot wonder sale worth it!  We will be saving $175/month on our mortgage payment.

4. Thursday morning was my weigh in for week one of the Hallelujah Acres 60 day challenge.  I have lost 4 pounds already.  Feeling pretty good about that!  I now weigh as much as I did when we left Arizona.  10 pounds down, 30 to go - sheesh!  But I am not worried about it.  I am focused on getting healthy and weight loss is a natural by-product.

As well as loving my green smoothies (and so are the girls) I am completely used to the idea of having a big salad at lunch and dinner.  That was the part that I was most worried about incorporating.  We think nothing of eating meat at 2 out of 3 meals (or 3 out of 3 meals!) but having salad twice is like, what?? I already ate a salad today!  I think what helps is that I don't feel compelled to keep it completely raw since the goal is 85% raw, so I can create variations to keep it interesting.  Example:  I put some black beans and spanish rice on my salad and make a salsa vinaigrette - a mexican salad. :)  But I am also just finding that my tastes are starting to make the switch over to enjoying the fresh, raw food better than the cooked food.

I really love the daily inspiration they email each day and also becoming a fan on Facebook was great.  More great tips are posted there.  I literally have signed up for so many raw and health emails that I am constantly getting something in my mailbox to keep me focused and on track!

Well, I will end with an inspirational video.  This lady is a raw foodist and a great example of what live foods can do for you. :)

Posted in: family news, Raw_Vegan Lane on Friday, January 15, 2010 at at 8:45 PM