All Posts By

Roni

Environment

I’d like more than 30 years

My anxiety is really high.

Seems everywhere I look, there’s another article saying we are killing the Earth. That Canada’s permafrost is thawing 70 years earlier than predicted, that recycling our plastic is actually causing a bigger problem than it should be, and that we only have 30 more years until the Earth becomes uninhabitable.

I read these things, and I think, why aren’t more people concerned. Why are people still grabbing plastic bags at the grocery store? Why haven’t all coffee shops started offering biodegradable cups? Why are we still using plastic wrap when we have beeswax wraps? Why haven’t we switched back to glass bottles instead of plastic?!?!

The answer: people don’t think they make an impact.

And that thought seriously makes me sick to my stomach. Because one small change by even a handful of people makes a HUGE change. Say you go to the grocery store once a week for a year, and you get on average 4 plastic bags per trip. That’s 208 bags in a year. If you brought your own reusable canvas tote, you’d save 208 plastic bags by yourself, from landing in landfills. Now say 9 other households you know do the same, that’s 2,080 plastic bags REMOVED from the landfill. That’s 2,080 plastic bags that won’t blow into the ocean or land up on the side of the highway because you chose NOT to take them at the grocery store.

But they still have the bags at the store, you say. So it doesn’t matter, you say.

And here, I remind you that the grocery store orders more plastic bags when they run out. And if they aren’t running out of bags, they won’t order more. And if they don’t order more, the company making the bags won’t create more. Which means, we won’t add more single use plastic into our waste stream.

And yes, I understand that sometimes we forget our bags at home. But we can still ask for paper bags, ask the bagger to NOT put that single banana in its own bag, to not have a bag for larger items. Every single bag you don’t take can help us make a tiny change.

So let’s try this week to do something small. One small change.

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Fitness, Health

Two Miles to Maybe Half Marathon?

A few days ago Andy told me we were doing a Half Marathon. Yes, he TOLD me. Apparently my husband thinks I truly enjoy torturing myself.

After I stopped arguing with him, I took a few days to think about it. And I reconsidered it … a bit. I decided that it wouldn’t be horrible to at least do the training part. Maybe I won’t sign up for an actual half marathon race, but maybe I can start running again. So today, I ran two miles. Two miles in 25 sweat-drenched minutes. Two miles of why-did-I-ever-stop-running questions racing through my head.

A few years ago, I was in the best shape of my life. I was coming off of a break up, eating better, and spending a lot of time in the gym on treadmills and ellipticals. At that time, I had set myself a goal to run 365 miles in a year. A mile a day.

It wasn’t bad at all. I would run two, three, sometimes four miles at a time to “bank” miles. So when I went away for vacation, I wouldn’t have to find time to run if I couldn’t. And I hit my goal, all well within my time limit.

Running gave me more than I thought it would. It was a personal therapy session every day where I could tune out all the horrible thoughts in my head. It let me focus on the task at hand. In turn, I got a stronger body and mind.

But after that year, I stopped. I let life get in the way. I let the typical “when you get comfortable in a relationship you get fat” story come true. I gave up on myself when I should have reminded myself to stay strong, give myself my needed therapy runs and stop eating like I was still running every day.

So I’m hoping if I force myself to “train” for this magical half marathon, that maybe I can feel better about myself – both mentally and physically. So today was day one. Yikes.

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Uncategorized

It’s Been Awhile

It seems that I’ve gotten a little busy. Okay, a lot busy. And I’ve completely neglected my blog, my love for writing, cooking, working out regularly, and pretty much anything that doesn’t include work.

Sometimes when life throws a lot at you, you tend to put things on the sideline. Things that mean a lot to you, but you forget they mean a lot to you. Like something as simple as making breakfast. For the last year I have basically “forgotten” to eat breakfast every morning. I used to wake up early, make myself a breakfast (even if it’s just a couple of eggs), maybe workout a bit, and then start my day. I miss that.

Which is why I spent a few days fighting the Internet to figure out how to log back into my blog. Yes, I locked myself out. That’s how long it’s been.

But now that I’m in, I’m hoping I can keep myself accountable. Maybe log some workouts. Maybe share how I am balancing getting real meals into my system every day while we spend 12 plus hours a day running our new store. (Yes, we FINALLY opened a brick and mortar store!!)

We will see where this goes. And if anyone is listening, that’s even better. Help me track some goals, eat better, make better decisions, and find myself again.

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Food

Twice Baked Cheesy Sweet Potatoes

I keep forgetting to post the recipe for these cheesy sweet potatoes, which is crazy, because it was soooo good and super easy to make!

We were making food for the SuperBowl and I wanted to make something healthy considering we had the deep fryer out and Andy was putting just about anything he could find in it. So I grabbed our leftover sweet potatoes and thought I’d bake them. Well, I baked them. Then I baked them again and added cheese. So they were kind of healthy. I mean, they were baked after all. Right??

They even were good the next day. All I did was pop them in the oven for a bit to reheat them and they were good to go. If you want them even more creamy, you can add a bit of butter when making the stuffing.

Twice Baked Cheesy Sweet Potatoes

Gather
4 Large Sweet Potatoes
1/4 Cup of Milk
1 Cup of Shredded Cheddar Cheese
Salt
Pepper
Cayenne Pepper
Garlic Powder

Preheat your oven to 400 degrees. Pierce each sweet potato with a knife, then line on a baking sheet and cook for 45 minutes. Allow potatoes to cool so you can scoop out the insides.

Carefully slice potatoes in half lengthwise. Then, using a spoon, carefully scoop out the insides of the sweet potatoes without breaking the skins and place insides in a bowl. Place skins back on baking sheet.

In bowl, add milk, 1/2 teaspoon of each pepper, salt, cayenne pepper, and garlic powder. (You may adjust seasoning to your liking.) Stir to combine. Add half of the cheese and stir once more to combine.

Scoop mixture back into potato skins, then top with remaining cheese. Place back into oven for 15-20 minutes or until cheese is melted and browned.

Remove from cooking sheet and serve.

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