Energy Addict? Yes Please!

I'm currenty reading Energy Addict by Jon Gordon and I am feeling so motivated to become that person that we all know, the one who seems to be the energizer bunny and can just go go go, 

all with a  smile on their face, and energy to spare, and share. 

That person that we all secretly hate because they are just so full of life and energy, and well, it's just not fair. 

Well, as of yesterday, I am getting addicted to positive energy.

This book is packed full of 101 physical, mental, and spiritual ways to energize your life.

My favorite suggestion so far?

Getting 8 to 10 hours of sleep. 

Yes, you heard right. 

8 to 10. 

Haven't I always said that?

Now I can justify that through scientific research.

In fact, according to a scientific study, 8 is good, but 10 is better!

" While there are a few people who can consistently get by with only four hours of sleep per night, most of us require at least eight hours of sleep--and nine to ten a night is optimal, according to Cornell Psychology Professor James B. Maas. One third of Americans get less than six hours of sleep a night. Research shows that if you get less than eight hours of sleep, you are operating  in an 'impaired' state; your alertness, productivity, creativity, and general health are all affected. We all know about the risks of driving while impaired...but living in a perpetually impaired state is another matter altogether.

Acorrding to Mass, 'Between the seventh and eighth hour of sleep is when we get almost an hour of REM (rapid eye movement) sleep, the time when the mind repairs itself, grows new connections and recharges us. If you only sleep six hours a night, you're missing that last, important opportunity to repair and to prepare for the coming day.' 

This means less energy for your body

and less energy for you."

People, like I've always said, sleep is important for your body.

That's why I love it so much!

I'll share a few other physical energy energy tips, but I highly suggest purchasing the book today,

because he has many mental and spiritual strategies as well!

Take back your life and beome an energy addict!

Physical Energy Addict Tips:

1. Eat breakfast.

2. Eat more earlier.

3. Eat organic, whole foods.

3. Exercise in the morning.

4. Take a short walk after lunch and dinner.

5. Take a nap. 

6. Energize with yoga. 

7. Drink lots of water.

Those are only 7 of 39 physical energy suggestions. 

I'm telling you, if you're constantly feeling sluggish, tired, and like you're running on empty

this book can help you!

I've only read the physical tips so far, but I'm already feeling energized and motivated by having the knowledge and the drive to make a few changes so I can be one of those people that I always complain about, but am secretly jealous of. 

I'm going to be energetic, and powerful

I'm going to be an energy addict. 

The Vintage Pearl: new stuff, old stuff, a giveaway!

Found a great giveaway- they have three necklaces and a bracelet that you can choose from if you win! I love love love them, I am entering myself...just thought I'd share this with anyone out there that actually reads this because hey, what girl doesn't love free jewelry??

The Vintage Pearl: new stuff, old stuff, a giveaway!

Snuggle Time with Cub

How am I supposed to get out of bed in the morning,
and get anything done,

...when I have this adorable little munchkin asking me to

"stay in bed for a long long time and snuggle with him??"

Ok Cub. I'll stay in bed till noon snuggling with you.
How can I say no to that smile?
And those dimples?
And how can I pass up an opportunity to snuggle with you?

I'm sure that won't last much longer. 

One day, all too soon, it won't be cool anymore
to snuggle with your big sister.
So I've got to stock up on snuggle time now while I can!

Billy Joel - Tell Her About It

Words to live by from good ol' Billy. A girl needs to hear it. Don't you agree?

Is Do Allowed In Scrabble?

Saturday's late night scrabble game:
(Time-12:30ish)

Me: Staring at the scrabble board with nothing to do because we're getting near the end. Finally realize I might have a two letter word option. I pick up the paper with the list of acceptable two letter words to verify that my word is on the acceptable two letter word scrabble list. It is. Score. I put down the letter D in front of an O.

Casey: "You checked to make sure you could spell do (as in doo)?"

Me: (Sheepishly) "Uh...oh yeah. Do (doo) is a word huh? I was using it as do (doh) as in 'Do Re Mi Fa Sol La Ti'....but I wasn't sure if that was allowed in scrabble. But I guess Do (doo) works too. Whatever, it's really late."

Casey: (thinking I'm a total idiot and laughing uncontrollably at me) Yeah it is late for a scrabble game....

Me: I cannot stop laughing for the next few minutes.

....Casey you were just being nice. There is no good excuse for forgetting one of the most basic, common words in the English language. I don't care how late it is a person should never forget the word do. That was a total Nicole Moment. Yes, I have had so many dumb blonde moments that many a person now just refer to it as a Nicole Moment.

Up at 5 AM

Up at 5 AM? Why yes, yes I was. I wish I could say it was because that's just the type of person I am...the type that is early to retire and early to rise. But that is so not me. In fact, it is rare for me to ever be up at 5 in the AM, but if I am, it is more likely than not due to the fact that I have yet to go to bed, as opposed to because I woke up at the butt crack of dawn. Now you're probably thinking I'm some crazy party animal out making all kinds of trouble till 5 in the morning, but nope, my life is not even that exciting. If I am staying awake that early it's most often because I'm caught up in some book I just started reading during the day and now must stay up all night reading because I just have to find out what happens. I have had many sleepless nights, and many "baggy-dark-circles-under-the-eye" kind of days due to a good book. But I've gotten way off subject and started rambling. Back to the reason I was up at five this morning...it was because of my foot. Maybe you already know this about me, maybe you don't, but I have complex regional pain syndrome. You probably have no idea what that is, don't worry, no one does. And I don't feel like explaining it right now, but google it if you're interested. Also, side note to any physical therapists or doctors out there that might just happen to stumble across this--there's a lot of money to be made in this area I'm sure, as researchers are still trying to figure out exactly what causes CPRS, what treatments work best, and how to cure it. (There is currently no cure, it can only be managed.) Find a cure and you will become super wealthy, I will see to it personally! Anyways, the point of the story is this: I had yet another sleepless night due to the burning and aching pain in my foot, and I am so sick of it! My little white pills (a.k.a vicaden) did absolutely nothing to help. My mom rubbed my foot some and it helped, but she can never do it hard enough for very long. She, and Kelsey, are convinced I'm a masochist. And maybe I am. Because the pain level is excruciating when my foot is finally being rubbed the way I want it to be. But I'm telling you, even though it's almost unbearable, it feels way better than the dull, burning ache deep within my foot that never goes away--that is until someone else is rubbing my foot to the point that the pain level is ten times greater. Okay, so I really am sounding like a complete masochist. But in my defense after one of these extremely deep, extremely painful foot rubs my foot begins feeling much better. The pain is so deep inside that the only way to reach it, and get rid of it, is to squeeze and push on it as hard as possible and make it hurt! To desensitize my foot. And on the plus side the deeper the rub, the more all the scar tissue gets broken up. So even though the pain is unbearable, in the long run it's totally worth it and going to help! Alright, excuse my venting, I think I'm good for now. Chronic pain kinda wears on a person every once in awhile, but oh well, that is life, and we all have our own struggles and trials right? I know firsthand than ongoing hardships, illnesses, pains, etc., can be extremely difficult to bear and bring a person down. But I try to remember that I do not have to let anything control me. I can control my own attitude, I do not have to let CPRS control me. Sometimes this is difficult--when the pain becomes too much, when I have lost sleep, or sleep too much to help with the pain, when I have to miss out on activities I once enjoyed, and when I feel like a burden to those that massage my foot for me. But what it really comes down to is that I can sit around and mope because my foot always hurts, and I can let CPRS rule me, or I can decide to be happy and enjoy life anyways. I try to count my blessings if I really start feeling down. I have made up my mind to be a happy person, no matter what situations I am facing in life.

Elder Robert D. Hales gave a beautiful talk about pain entitled "Healing Soul and Body" The following passage is from the talk.

In this mortal life, each of us is going to experience pain in one form or another. Pain may come from an accident or from a painful medical condition. We may feel deep pain from the mourning that appropriately comes with the loss of a loved one or the loss of affection from one we hold dear. Pain may come from feeling lonely or depressed. It often comes as a result of our disobedience to the commandments of God, but it also comes to those who are doing all they can to keep their lives in line with the example of the Savior.

The scriptures teach that “there is … opposition in all things” (2 Ne. 2:11). Just as times of joy and happiness come to each of us, so also comes pain to every mortal. How can we understand those moments in our life when we experience physical or emotional pain?

Elder Orson F. Whitney wrote: “No pain that we suffer, no trial that we experience is wasted. It ministers to our education, to the development of such qualities as patience, faith, fortitude and humility. All that we suffer and all that we endure, especially when we endure it patiently, builds up our characters, purifies our hearts, expands our souls, and makes us more tender and charitable, more worthy to be called the children of God, … and it is through sorrow and suffering, toil and tribulation, that we gain the education that we come here to acquire”

Read the full talk here!

So anyways, today was one of those discouraging days that I felt was totally wasted because of my foot. I ended up sleeping in until two pm because I was up until 5, and if I don't get enough sleep the pain in my foot is totally aggravated. So my whole day was pretty much wasted, but my foot is feeling much better and I am ready to take on the day tomorrow! Watch out world, here I come!

Here are a few books about complex regional pain syndrome I found on amazon, they look pretty good if anyone is interested in learning more or if you are struggling with learning to cope with it yourself! (Or if you've decided you want to be that person that discovers what's actually going on in the brain and how to cure it!)

So Domestic...NOT

I've become quite the Rachael Ray fan as of late.
I adore her, her show, and her recipes!
Yesterday I was feeling, as my dear friend Peyton terms it, "so domestic"
and I decided to tackle one of Rachael's recipes-
one that I had seen her make on her show a couple of weeks ago.
It seemed simple enough.
It was her Extra Spicy Linguini with Sausage, Chili Peppers, Cherry Tomatoes, and Arugula.
The plan was to cook a yummy and delicious gourmet meal for Casey-
and wow him with my cooking skills of course.
So Casey came over and we took a trip to Market of Choice (currently one of my favorite places in the world by the way) to buy the necessary ingredients.
Because I don't know about you buy I don't just happen to have Arugula lying around. If any place was going to have it though, it would be Market of Choice. And they did.
Casey made himself extremely useful and pushed the cart as I searched the vegetable aisle for Arugula. (Don't you just love that word- it rolls right off the tongue)
Let's see how many times I can use the word Arugula in this post.
We found the Arugula and it was the freshest salad I had ever beheld.
It was still attached to the sod it was grown from.
I am not kidding.
It does not get any fresher than that.
And it was expensive-2.99 for a small bundle.
And the recipe called for 4 bundles.
Casey talked me into getting only three,
and we then got the rest of our vegetable ingredients and fresh garlic.
I'm going to pause the story here though and put in a little side note about Arugula.
I didn't know what Arugula was except that it was a leafy green-I had never even heard of it.
So I just googled Arugula as I was sitting here blogging and Wikipedia has all kinds of useful
information about Arugula in case any of you are interested in trying it out.
(I recommend it-it was delicious!)

And I found one thing I agree with President Obama on:
In an intent to note the disparity between producer and retailer prices Barack Obama caused a stir when he asked “Anybody gone into Whole Foods lately and see what they charge for arugula? I mean, they’re charging a lot of money for this stuff.” at an Adel, Iowa campaign stop.

In a nutshell everything you need to know about Arugula is this-it comes attached to the dirt, it's rich in vitamin C and Potassium, has a peppery flavor, is great mixed in with pasta, has been considered an aphrodisiac since the first century AD, and as President Obama himself stated, is pretty darn expensive.

Anywho, back to the store.
I now have all the ingredients except the linguini and the pork sausage.
And Casey is still pushing the cart.
We find the linguini-organic of course, because that's just the kind of store Market of Choice is.

So now we just need the pork sausage.
Italian pork sausage to be exact.
We stroll over to the meat section and I begin perusing the sausage labels,
not only looking for Italian sausage, but Nitrate free sausage.
Because even though I can't tell you what nitrates are, everyone knows they're extremely bad for you, duh.
Well I find the only nitrate free sausage they have and put it in the cart
-even though it's mini sausages and definitely not Italian.
I ignore the nagging feeling telling me this is not the right pork and that I should just ask the Meat Man behind the counter.
BIG MISTAKE.

After purchasing all the ingredients we headed home to cook our feast.
I started into the recipe feeling extremely confident and thinking I was such a homemaker.
Well I didn't get too far before I was sufficiently humbled.
I had just started cooking the sausages when my mom informed me that:
a) I had bought breakfast sausage
b) they were in casings and needed to be cut apart (and therefore wouldn't crumble as the recipe called for)
c) one of the packages of sausages was maple flavored
d) I should have asked at the meat counter for the right kind of sausage

Thanks Mom. What would I do without you.

But there went my plan to impress Casey with my Rachael Ray recipe.
I'd already butchered it and bought breakfast sausage!
My mom came to the rescue though and we pulled out the maple sausage,
spiced up the remaining sausage with italian seasoning and garlic,
and added in hamburger meat to make up for the lost meat.
Whoops! Guess I should have listened to my gut.

My big blunder aside, the pasta turned out great.
And yes Casey you were a big help.
Thanks for pushing the cart, cutting the arugula off the dirt, chopping the chili peppers, and peeling the garlic! Muchas gracias!
The pasta was beautiful, I should have snapped a photo.
But we had enough to feed a small army.
Did I mention that I doubled Rachael's recipe because it only served four.
Well she has very generous helpings because the recipe doubled fed my family of 9, plus Casey, and there was still enough leftovers to feed us all a second, and perhaps even a third time.
Let's just say I'll be eating the linguine dish all week.

Click here for the recipe if you want to try it, it was incredibly tasty and actually pretty simple. But word to the wise-don't buy breakfast sausage!