#Notbuyingit

A few months back my friend and I went to a conference where they showed the movie MissRepresentation. We were incredibly inspired and decided to work to get our school to purchase it so that we could show it on campus. This past Friday we had our first viewing and discussion of the movie.

MissRepresentation is a movie that focuses on how women are misrepresented in the media. It really dives into how this prevents women from taking themselves seriously and from being taken seriously.

As hundreds of screen shots of scantily clad, violated, ditzy, overly thin women flash across the screen you realize how we are completely surrounded by this stereotype of what a woman should be. The media has literally created (thank you photoshop) the so called “ideal” woman, defined in a body, that is an ideal no woman can actually attain, and yet we all strive for it. It is amazing how television will stop at nothing to provide the most shockingly sexy television shows, movies, magazine covers etc. As I continue on in life I realize how basically every woman is suffering from some sort of self esteem issue, fighting against some eating disorders, hating themselves, hating their bodies, and sitting back and taking it, striving to have the flat tummy, or “thigh gap” or perfectly sculpted arms. Since when is this beautiful?

As someone who has struggled with all of the above issues, it is important to me to advocate for love and respect. It is time for us as women to love ourselves, and respect and love one another no matter what size our jeans are. It is also time to change the standard men are called to. To be a real man you don’t have to be crude, overly macho, or abusive to women.

This is a topic that is highly relevant and something that has to change but I am struggling with how. How to we make a change. Please let me know if you have any thoughts or ideas. As for now all I know is that I can start by constantly striving to love myself and love others for WHO we are and what we are capable of rather than what we look like.

There is also a campaign Missrepresentation is heading up call #notbuyingit. If you have a twitter account or facebook you can post when you see something that you don’t agree with. Whether it be an advertisement or commercial that shows women that are just too skinny, something that is extremely violating or disturbing,  or anything else,just post #notbuyingit with a reference to what it is you are refusing to buy into. (For example: those Carl’s Jr. commercials)

That’s all for now. Please comment with any thought or ideas, etc.

WIAW

I was reallllllllyyy bad about taking pictures of my food this week. That may be because I feel like I was on repeat mode and just ate things I have posted about already.

I started my day with a delicious bowl of oatmeal and an apple. I have been in a breakfast rut lately. I think I am just craving the one thing I can’t have and nothing is satisfying me otherwise (cereal…Sunday we are planning on having a cereal tasting breakfast for Easter morning!) However, when I get in a rut I have to simplify. Sometimes I fancy up my oatmeal so much that I forget how good it can be when you just leave it be. So I just did oats, raisins and a bit of brown sugar and it was perfect.
No pictures really needed for that meal I guess…

As a snack at work I had one of my new favorite granola bars;

We had someone from Udi’s come and speak at our school and they handed out some cards for free products. I decided to give their granola bars a try. I bought the Ancient Grains and Cranberry Almond. At first I wasn’t sure whether or not I liked them (I had put my lunch in the fridge and ate the bar cold and it was a bit hard and I didn’t know if I loved it) Once I tried them again I really enjoyed them and now they are becoming one of my favorites because they are super hardy and chewy and delicious. I would highly recommend them.

Sitting at work and doing nothing makes me hungry…idontknowwhybutitdoes. So when I did get home I was more than ready for lunch! I am slowly trying to get myself to enjoy fish. A while back I bought a can of tuna and I decided it was finally time to crack it open. I made myself a tuna salad sandwich with tomato, lettuce, onion, carrot and some sunflower seeds and ate it with some carrot sticks on the side. Helllllooooo Omega-3s, it’s about time!

I snapped a picture right before slamming the two sides together and chowing down. Afterwards I needed something sweet so I went for half an apple and half an orange.

I packed up and headed back to school to fit in a quick workout, study with a friend, meet to talk more about MissRepresentation (I will get to this soon) and go to Bible Study. When I got home it was late and I was hungry and heading towards hangry and was thankful for my prep work and the food I still had waiting for me in the fridge, making it easy to throw together a delicious meal.

I had an ultimate comfort food (in my opinion). It is what I like to call “rice-a-creamy” a.k.a any rice with sour cream and cheese to make for super deliciousness.

 

Tonight’s Rice-A-Creamy

3/4 cup cooked wild rice

1/2 cup broccoli roasted

1/4 cup cooked chicken breast

1 mushroom sauteed with a few dashes of Worcestershire sauce

2 tbsp mozzarella

1 tbsp grated Parmesan

1 tbsp sour cream

1 tbsp avocado

Salt and pepper (I also added garlic and onion to my rice when I cooked it so if you would like to add some of that…go for it!)

Basically heat everything up in a pan and let the cheese get all melty and top with sour cream

Yes please!

Now I am snacking some apple, finishing up some studying and reading and heading to bed.

Yay Wednesday…Thursday here we come!

 

Music, Food, and Thoughts

Randomness

1. The other night we were able to have a worship night at school and it was wonderful. A friend of mine who is the worship leader at the local church came and played his guitar and lead us in some songs. There is something wonderful about being surrounded by close friends and singing songs of worship. One of my all time favorites in Beautiful by Phil Wickham. It is hauntingly beautiful. Music is awesome.

2. On another completely different note, I never posted my food prep from last Monday, so before I get to this Monday’s food prep I will recap last week in this post:

I made:

-Some fajita style chicken all marinated in the fridge and ready to bake off, recipe here.

-Roasted broccoli

-Chopped and sliced onion ready to go (along with some pre caramelized onions)

-Lettuce cut and washed

-Wild rice cooked

-Couscous salad (this is actually the couscous and grain salad mix from trader joe’s that is so good) I added some sliced oranges, slivered almonds, feta, and raisins for an awesome salad.

-I made an orange sauce and marinated some chicken in it for orange chicken with rice and broccoli later in the week. I made this recipe with a few adjustments for my taste.

-I found some old bread in the freezer and so I cut it up, drizzled with a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper and baked them at about 400 until crispy and crunchy for croutons!

-Chopped up some garlic for easy access to flavor in the week (I hate chopping garlic)

-Bananas for the freezer

-A big ‘ol stuffed mushroom. I sauteed some kale with some olive oil, added about a tablespoon of cream cheese and a dollop of sour cream, salt, pepper, feta and onions and then baked it off for about 20 minutes. Yum.

3. Eats from the week:

Starting at the top left:

A. Delicious salad with tomato, carrot, mushrooms, some of the couscous salad from above, sweet potato and hummus.

B. Snack of popcorn and raisins

C. Soft tacos with shredded chicken, shredded lettuce, tomato, onion and sour cream

D. Some of that stuffed mushroom with grilled tomatoes and onions and an egg (usually I am a runny yoke kind of girl but lately that has just not sounded appealing, hence the egg above :))

E. Last bites of wild rice, broccoli and orange chicken.

F. My new favorites Flatout Bread filled with scrambled egg, broccoli and onion, ketchup for dipping and some apple slices.

4. Stressing about internships and life and future. Ah. Ready. To. Graduate. slash whatdoidowithmylifenow?

5. That is all I have for now. Have a great day!

 

 

Aaaannnd…welcome back winter.

Umm…sooo whathappenedhere???

 

 

I would very much appreciate if there were a 0 added to that number. OKthankyou

Yesterday spring was like, “hey, I’ve been here for less than a week, time for me to go on a break.” Thus, winter came back with a vengeance.

This meant Giorgia and I were stuck inside all day, which is never a good thing for me. After sitting and watching TV for a few hours in PJs we decided that we needed to get to work. This meant clearing out the living room and finding the Just Dance videos on youtube and looking like fools dancing around the apartment. After about an hour or so of that, we lunched, skyped, watched apple movie trailers, took warm showers and then braved the snow to go to supper group.

After a nice meal with friends, we grabbed a movie and our friend Meg came over for a Saturday Sleepover! With Hot Chocolate, and bread pudding made out of leftover pastries, we sat in the warmth and watched Trouble With The Curve.  It was a cute and lighthearted movie. (We also got Taken 2 which we will be watching later…wohoo)

We rose rather early this morning to head out to Jelly once again before church.

 

 

 

Oh ya, cappuccino and breakfast on the way. Happy place.

We all went in on an order of their donuts. We decided to get four different ones so we could give a bunch of them a shot. We went with the Thai, Lemon Curd, Bhakti Chai, and Maple Bacon.

The Thai has siracha and peanut butter filling or something. We tried that one first and it was intense. Literally tasted like an eggroll in donut form. Wasn’t my thing. Interesting to say the least. It took me a while before I was able to fully cleanse my palate and move on. Maple and bacon was like breakfast in a bite, the chai was super spicy and delicious, and the lemon curd was lemon curd…need I say more?

I went with the basic breakfast because you can’t go to Jelly without somehow eating lots of jelly. Two poached eggs, toast and jelly and some fantastic potatoes. YUM.

This picture makes me look really clean but you should have seen my seat after. Somehow I was a bit of a hot mess during this breakfast. Sour cream on my sleeve while taking a picture, coffee down my coat, flooded the table with soy milk from my coffee, and crumbs everywhere. I did my best to clean up, leaving a beautiful wadded napkin centerpiece. Woops. Luckily we had the same amazing waitress as last time and she was super sweet about it all!

Any other messy eaters out there?

Hopefully the snow will go away and spring will come back soon. Until then, more movies and hot drinks I guess.

 

Have an awesome Sunday!

 

WIAW (but on thursday…)

I really love What I Ate Wednesday  (WIAW). It is so fun to see what everyone has in a day and I feel like it gives me a lot of ideas so i am going to start participating. And why not start a day late….so here is my first WIAWT

I started my day a bit indecisive. Peanut butter and banana toast, oatmeal, cereal (although I can’t have cereal right now because I gave processed cereals up for lent due to my slight addiction, I still think of it longingly each morning as a possible option.) I decided the only way to decide was to avoid making a decision and just have all three…

So I had toateral? Peanut butter and banana oatmeal with cold almond milk poured on top. Everything I was looking for.

After running around in the morning and working for a while it was time for a snack so I had some of my favorite non Greek yogurt (cascade fresh) and some slivered almond.

When I got home I had computer brain. Basically I felt like I had been staring at a screen for too long. I was also beyond sore. On Monday I did a bunch of squats, crunches and push ups (ok the girly kind) and my favorite Gaiam pilates video. Later in the night my friends and I decided to go to a new PiYo class they were holding on campus. Why not do a little more pilates and yoga right. OMG this should be called Insane Crazy Kill Every Muscle PiYo. It was intense. Then Tuesday was ZUMBA. By Wednesday I was really feeling the pain and I needed to relax. I made up a delicious sandwich and then Giorgia and I sat and watched Slumdog millionaire.

I toasted up some sesame ezekial bread and then smeared on some lemon garlic hummus (so Good), some shredded lettuce (makes everything better), sliced tomatoes and some mushrooms and onions sauteed in balsamic vinegar.

 

This was followed by an apple a bit later.

After heading back to school, hanging up posters for a showing of MissRepresentation (more on that later) and Bible Study, it was back home for breakfast soft tacos!

 

Two corn tortillas with scrambled egg, shredded lettuce, tomato, black bean and sour cream (using up some delicious leftovers that were passed on to us…so thankful!)

A little later I was feeling like one more treat, something warm,

I microwaved some frozen peaches, sprinkled on some cinnamon and sugar and some crushed up graham bears. Hit the spot, basically like a mini pie. Perfect.

And then it was off to bed.