What Groceries We Buy Each Week, Video Courtesy of My Daughter

I just got home from our weekly Friday shopping trip and I happened to lay everything down on the table in preparation to put it all away when I thought, "this would make a great picture!" I pulled out my lovely digi cam and realized that it didn't fit in the pic! My daughter had the great idea of making a video instead, and she wanted to do all the talking as well.

As you can see, we buy a lot of bananas! I once assumed that I buy about 20 lbs of bananas, but I added it up from the receipt and it was 69. 72 pounds! What do we do with all those bananas???? I'm not sure either! LOL I know that I like to make a lot of banana ice cream. I also know that I put bananas in a lot of my green smoothies. I actually don't like to eat bananas plain, but about once a month I will eat some with Rory's raw cacao sauce. Rory likes to eat a lot of bananas in his breakfast cereal, and he eats a lot with his raw tahini as well. My daughter eats some in smoothies and also eats the ice cream. I guess little by little it all gets chowed down.

We do spend a lot of money on our groceries, but we don't break the bank. We feel it's justified since we are soooo much healthier now that we eat raw. I have lost a lot of weight, my husband has lost a lot more (150 lbs between us). I can see better on raw food, Rory's scars have nearly healed, his cavities no longer hurt and some seem to be going away. My daughter is happier and healthier looking, and never gets sick. To me, that makes it worth it to spend about $100.00 more per week on groceries.

So how much did we spend on all this? We went to 2 different stores, in order to get the best deals. The first store we spent $55.24 and the second we spent $86.28. So total we spent $141.52. This is actually a little less than usual since I was on a budget this week (since we are moving). We usually spend closer to $180 or $200 (for 3 people) in the Winter months. In the Summer we shop at farmers markets and that usually allows us to spend only half as much. Spring is on it's way!

How much are you willing to spend on good health?

Reduce, Reuse, Freecycle

Image from www.321now.org

This has been a crazy month for us getting ready to move. I have to admit, homeschooling is very difficult to do amid piles of boxes and lists of things to do. I've moved a ton of times in my life, but never so far and with so much stuff. Mostly I just moved from one dorm to another in college, and when I was a kid we moved as far as next door. Now we are moving about 7 hours, and we have to make sure we have everything packed and ready, plus we have to be able to somehow use our stuff while it's packed.

Oh and here are some tips for finding homes for some of your old furniture.

1. Put it outside with a free sign. We had the ugliest couch in the world, half of the upholstery was missing and what was left had stains and holes. The only reason we kept it was because we had a couch cover. I put that ugly thing outside without the cover and after 3 days it was gone. Hallelujah!

2. Freecycle it! Freecycle is a community of people that give away their old stuff for free to anyone who wants it. One warning though, don't put anything on freecycle until you are ready to part with it. I put my washing machine on Freecycle last night, thinking it would take a week or so to find it a home. This morning I woke to a ton of emails from people who wanted it. I felt bad, since it was my fault for posting it so early, so tonight someone is picking it up. Now I have to go the next 2 weeks without a washing machine! Luckily my mom lives close by and has one.

3. Network. I also have a refrigerator that needed a home. I talked to everyone that I knew, and they talked to everyone they knew, and so on. Someone a few degrees away from my mother is picking up the fridge the day we move. Another one bites the dust!

4. Used furniture and appliance stores. Now this is a place we didn't use, but we would have if we didn't find any other takers. Actually, this is where we bought a lot of our furniture in the first place, including our refrigerator. Many of these places will pick up your stuff for you, but not all of them.

My goal was to keep our stuff out of a landfill. I hate to see perfectly good stuff thrown out that someone else could use. In college my friends would go dumpster diving and find televisions, microwaves, stereos, etc. all in perfectly good condition! Since I've seen so much waste, and wasted plenty myself in my college days, Rory and I have decided early on to buy as much used stuff as possible and to buy as little stuff as possible. We don't collect knickknacks, furniture, or anything. We do receive a lot though from friends and family. It's amazing, I've noticed the less we buy, the more stuff is just given to us for free!

What are ways that you recycle your old furniture and appliances? What things do you do in your home to keep trash out of landfills?

Have you seen the show 30 Days?

Photo courtesy of www.fxnetworks.com

Okay, so each night for the last few weeks, Rory and I have been watching a show on Hulu.com called 30 Days by Morgan Spurlock, (The same guy that did Supersize Me) which originally aired on FX. The premise is pretty much someone who had a very strong belief about an issue has to then experience life in the opposite world for 30 days, or someone just had to experience something they never had before. For example, in one episode a pro choice woman moved into a pro life group home for 30 days, another episode involved Morgan Spurlock spending 30 days in a jail. Many of the participants had life changing experiences. We don't watch much television at all, in fact we have never even had cable. This show intrigued us, and when we found that we could watch it online for free, we decided to check it out.

I have to say, the show didn't change my views about anything, but it did open my eyes a little further about each topic they discussed. Of course, one that I really "enjoyed" was titled "Animal Rights". In this episode, an avid hunter moved in with a family of vegan animal rights activists. He had to demonstrate on the streets with them, and also work at an animal sanctuary. He learned a lot about animal cruelty and by the end of the 30 days he felt that he was an animal rights activist. He still planned to eat meat and hunt, but he believed that animals should be treated without cruelty.

Another great episode was titled "Anti-Aging". This episode involved a man going through a mid life crises and he decided that he wanted to look like he did when he graduated high school. He went to a doctor and was prescribed human growth hormones, steroids, and a lot of vitamins. He wasn't able to finish the 30 days because his liver was experiencing some problems, and his sperm count went from phenomenal to zero. That was an eye opener for me! What was interesting to me was the doctor kept telling him that the low liver count "had never happened before" but many people that Rory knew in high school and in their early 20s that took steroids also took milk thistle to prevent liver problems. Therefore, liver problems must be so common that young, uneducated people know about it. So why was the doctor so surprised?

To be honest, all 0f the episodes are great, and well worth the watch. Some of the titles seem less interesting than others, so to avoid skipping them, we decided to watch them in order. In the end, there wasn't a single uninteresting episode, they were all worth watching. Morgan Spurlock only did 3 seasons before the show was canceled, so we were bummed to realize that there would be no more 30 Days.

watch the film Super Size Me for free Morgan Spurlock spends 30 days eating only McDonald's food and experiences all the highs and lows.

watch 30 Days on Hulu

30 Days official website on FX

Can't wait for Spring!

Yesterday was the end of my mini smoothie feast and exercise challenge. I didn't do 100% but I didn't fail either. Rory and I went on a trip to Connecticut to take a few of our belongings before the official move. We left on Friday for the 7+ hour trip, and returned home on Sunday. Driving all that way was so tiring for me. It was difficult to keep up with the challenge, and that's where I messed up. I'm not beating myself up about it though, since I have plenty of time to try again. I did tell myself, "no more challenges until we move". Our official move date is March 26th. Now is not a good time to try to test myself.

On a more positive note, I made some banana ice cream today. I haven't made any since Summer, so this was pretty exciting for all three of us. My way of trying to pull Spring in a few weeks early. To make this ice cream extra special, I added strawberries and kiwi on top. Rory recently made some raw chocolates so I chopped them up as chocolate chips. This was so yummy!