Cool And Refreshing

First up, I wanted to share a refreshing recipe that is great on its own, or over a light bed of greens in a wrap, and even mixed in to form a cool pasta salad. You won't need to break a sweat making it, and just need to chop and toss!

 Ingredients:

• 1/2 of a 15 oz. can of garbanzo beans
• 1/2 of a large organic cucumber, quartered and sliced
• 1/3 oz. pitted kalamata olives, diced
• about half of a red onion, diced
• 1 tsp. Italian seasonings
• 1 Tbs. extra virgin olive oil
• 2 Tbs, balsamic vinegar

In a medium size container, chop and add in the first four ingredients. You are aiming for about equal amounts of those first four items. If you can not find kalamata olives, substitute another variety, but then add 1 tsp. of red wine vinegar to the recipe. Also, for the balsamic vinegar, try to find one that does not have other items added in its ingredients on the label.

Add the seasoning and oil, and balsamic. Toss. Store the container upside down if possible, so the flavors get a chance to blend at the top. Serve as is; in your favorite wrap with salad greens; or toss and mix with some cool pasta, adding more olive oil if necessary. This tastes even better the next day once the flavors have had a chance to marry! The amount of servings depends on how you are using it, but I get about 5 to 6 wraps out of it when I spoon it over a hand full of greens into my large tortilla brown rice wraps.

Enjoy. It's lean, healthy and refreshing!

Below are my close choices for painting a bathroom in my home. I'm partial to the "Cool Pool" by Valspar from Lowes, the one on the right that is slightly greener in color. Also refreshing, and right in time for summer!

 

Happy Memorial Day everyone! Until next time, take care!

Fifty Pounds In Two Months

Well, I'm back to do a little blogging. Fifty pounds lighter than I was two months ago, and feeling considerably better where the rheumatoid arthritis is concerned. A whole foods gluten free vegan diet has the weight just peeling off of me, and has kept the insidious rheumatoid arthritis from doing more damage. The aches and pains are dissipating and I am able to do more with each passing day. Considering that at the time of my diagnosis I couldn't even go to the grocery store for myself, I am amazed at how receptive the human body can be to healing with good nutrition. Also, I was using an inhaler for COPD, and have not needed it anymore. I have to wonder if the COPD was actually a food allergy in my case...if I was eating something that caused a reaction that made it difficult for me to breathe. Because my breathing improved in less than a week of starting this elimination diet. In any event, I thank God each and every day that He showed me another way to live. That I'm not still stuck in a chair unable to stand or walk without pain ensuing. That I still have the use of my hands and can draw! That I'm not having to take a medication that will cause me to be losing my hair and throwing up all the time, all the while possibly not even helping my arthritis. That I have a primary care physician who motivates me, and did not belittle me in my choice for treating my rheumatoid arthritis with good nutrition instead of drugs. And thankful to God for so much much more!

This is certainly not the last post I will do concerning nutrition, weight loss, rheumatoid arthritis, and the Grace of God! So stay tuned for that! I also have some ink sketches to share today (Faces #809-#815):

Well, that's all for now. But I will try to be back soon! Until next time, take care!

Faceless

Yes...I have no new faces and am coming here "faceless" as it were, for the time being. If you want to know what I've been up to, I have been playing with my food! I am still in the throes of happily discovering what I can and can't eat in regards to inflammation and rheumatoid arthritis. I have become really creative and found these wonderful rice wraps by a company called "Food For Life" that I fill with curried sweet potato, black beans and red onion. My only complaint is that I want more than one...could eat ten of them, they are so good!

On the artistic end, I wanted to show some "faceless" designs that I did quite a while back. These were faceless because I wanted other people who couldn't draw to be able to reproduce them in fabric, in quilts. They aren't simply traced from photographs of people, but rather drawn in Adobe Illustrator. A lot of work went into the production of the quilt patterns I designed. Sometimes auditioning many designs...

 And then there is a lot of planning not only in the written content and explanation of "how to", but the layout of the information, choice of fonts, and choices of how to display the information so it is visually appealing...

 Not to mention the work in making the actual fabric and quilt models...

 Here are a few more...You can see the model versions are visually appealing because the implied textures of the fabrics add so much and keep the imagery from looking to plastic-y or "flat".

So while I had no new faces to show at this time, I am glad I had these to show. Hopefully in the near future I will pick up a pastel again, and have some faces to show! Until next time, take care!