So for the most part, I have been thoroughly enjoying my 6 AM runs with my new running group. It feels great to get my run in so early and have exercise checked off my list first thing. I enjoy the company and conversation as well as the easy pace of the group.

I do have to be honest about one thing though, and that is that these runs in the dark are starting to wear on me a little. I miss the sun! I miraculously managed to get a run in by myself during the daylight hours on Wednesday. Even though it was an overcast day, it was still nice to be out when the sun was on our side of the earth for a little while. Stingy southern hemisphere.

This morning I realized that if I can’t have the sun, I can at the very least have the essence of the sun in its plant based form. Hi Chlorophyll, you’ll do for now – I’ll take what I can get.

New house, I’d like you meet my good friend Breville. I’m sorry I haven’t properly introduced you to each other sooner!

If you look carefully, you’ll notice something missing out of one of those apples. Oops. It just looked too good to not sink my teeth into while I gathered up all the produce from my farmer’s market of a fridge. Somethings are just irresistible I tell ya! I’ll try and control myself next time. No promises though.

Today’s juicy concoction would be a giant head of green leaf lettuce, a partial head of red leaf, a couple of carrots, a few inches of ginger, two apples (minus one innocent bite) and two lemons. I’ve recently stopped peeling the lemons and putting them straight in the juicer as is. I’ve noticed that it gives the juice a lot more zing, and I’m assuming that’s from the rind? Maybe instead of saying it gives the juice more zing I should say more zest!

Two glasses of green vegetable juice this morning, one for me and one for him.

Thanks to the red leaf lettuce and carrots, this morning’s green goodness in a glass looks like we’re about to drink the water the girls rinsed their water color paint brushes in. Cucumbers make a much more photo friendly glass of vegetable juice, but carrots or cucumbers – they both taste amazing!

Speaking of introductions, our indoor-outdoor cats (who, until just recently, were temporarily demoted to indoor-only status until we were sure that they knew this is where their food dish is) are starting to get thrown outside again to get back to their indoor-outdoor status. Cats need daylight too after all!

Their new kitty outdoor adventures have allowed them to meet some of the other cats in the neighborhood. Maybe they’ll go running together or something.

Today our male cat Andy (on the right) got to meet this other black and white cat that keeps showing up on our doorstep.

Don’t they look happy to see each other? I know I always lay my ears flat like that when I’m in a good mood and happy to see someone. As a matter of fact, I’m totally laying my ears flat looking at all the clouds in the sky as I type.

• Won’t You Be My Neighbor?
• Orange You Glad It’s Sunday?
• Birthday Beet Juice

My green smoothie stuck with me most of the morning, but with about two hours until dinner time – I was getting hungry. I didn’t really want to eat anything, I wanted to be good and hungry for a feast! But I didn’t want to get to dinner feeling famished either.

What’s a girl to do?

Juice is always the answer!

Carrot apple ginger juice – the perfect thing to tide me over and leave me ready to eat by 2:30.

This year we brought along our favorite Thanksgiving book, The Thanksgiving Bowl by Virgina Kroll.

Having read this book before bed every night for nearly the past three weeks, not to mention the past two Novembers, Ava and I decided it would be fun to do a Thanksgiving Bowl with our family this year.

In the book, the family writes down something they are thankful for on a little piece of paper as they arrive and place their note in a yellow Thanksgiving bowl. After dinner the grandmother reads each note and she has to guess who wrote the note.

Everyone was happy to play along and wrote down a little something while we waited for everyone to arrive and for dinner to be served.

So many amazing vegetable dishes to choose from – who got room for turkey?

After our feast, it was time for Great Granny to guess!

Want to play? You get one guess for this one!

OK, it’s a little tricky so I’ll give you a hint. The person thankful for kitties is featured in this picture.

I missed my photo op for the dessert buffet before pies were sliced and diced!

With the clean up under control and some slivers of pumpkin, apple and elderberry pie enjoyed by me, it was time for some digestion and to head out with my favorite aunt for our annual post-Thanksgiving hour long walk and talk.

Our walk was blessed with a beautiful rainbow.

And am amazing sunset.

Good food and good family.

So much to be thankful for!

I am also thankful that I probably won’t be hungry for three days. And that Thanksgiving only comes once a year.

• We Came, We Saw, We Raked
• Let There Be Light
• Laundry Catch 22

On days when we stay home all day I try to get caught up on all tasks that are neglected when we’re away from home and running full speed ahead. You know… vacuuming, sweeping, feeding the cat.

Laundry is always on this list too, except when we’re home all day, Maxine changes her outfit six times over the course of about 12 hours. New socks, new underwear, the whole 9 yards. Usually she times her wardrobe change for when I’m elbow deep in rubber gloves and dishwater or I’m caught in a firestorm of pots and pans and herbs and spices trying to make sure nothing is going boil over or burn. What a coincidence that I can’t do a damn thing about her third pair of pants or second leotard of the morning when I can’t grab her by the shirt collar and gently remind her through a forced smile and gritted teeth that if she doesn’t knock it off she’ll be signing herself up for a new course I’m offering next semester; Intro Toddler Laundry.

I can’t do laundry when we’re not home, but the laundry piles up faster than I can fold it when we are home. How do you win?

So what was I doing tonight during wardrobe change numero cinco? (I hope that says Number Five. The only Spanish I know is from Dora the Explorer.)

I was making Southwest Tomato Soup.

Given we were under self imposed house arrest today, grocery shopping has been scheduled for tomorrow. Fresh produce stock has plummeted and the vegetable crisper is breathing a sigh of relief for the welcome break. I found myself locked in my house bound shackles trying to come up with a pantry dinner. Fortunately, I managed to whip up something easy and yummy – shackles and all. And please let the record state that I was wearing the same clothes during dinner prep that I was wearing when I made breakfast this morning.

Southwest Tomato Soup

1 Tbsp extra virgin olive oil
1 medium onion, diced
2 cloves of garlic
1/4 cup jarred jalapenos, diced
28oz canned tomatoes
1 can black beans, rinsed and drained
8 oz frozen corn
2 cups vegetable broth
1 Tbsp cumin
1 tsp chili powder
1 Tbsp dried cilantro
a dash of hot sauce
salt to taste

Saute onions, garlic and jalepeno in olive oil until soft.

Add remaining ingredients and bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer for about 15 – 20 minutes.

Done.

So what’s the perfect side kick to Tomato Soup?

Grilled cheese! But we’re having Mexican tomato soup, then we need Mexican grilled cheese to go with it! Mexican grilled cheese might also be known as tomato and cheese quesadillas. Served with a quarter of a diced avocado.

So happy together!

The soup recipe made six, one cup servings, about 165 calories per serving.

Dinner has been made, the dishes are done, pajamas are on. I’m now on red alert to stop any pajama wardrobe malfunctions before they even start.

• Confessions
• We Came, We Saw, We Raked
• Thanksgiving is Officially Over

Before I realized that I never published my morning post, we were off like a herd of turtles to help my grandmother rake the sea of leaves in her yard.

And rake we did. Lots and lots of raking. Did I mention we raked today?

And some jumping too.

Now you see her.

Now you don’t.

After a couple hours of yardio, we broke for lunch. Homemade bread and homemade squash soup. If that doesn’t just shriek AUTUMN in your ear like a banshee on a hayride I don’t know what does.

Don’t you love that my nearly 79 year old grandmother is wearing her baseball hat backwards while raking leaves in her yard? I aspire to be 80 and active!

Lucky for Great Granny, the Foodie Leaf Raker will happily accept the last of the fall harvest as payment for services rendered. OK, settle down – I would never charge my grandmother (much) for helping out but I will absolutely throw the rake across the yard to leap into the leaf filled garden and dig up the last of her beets and cut swiss chard to cradle in my arms and coo at like a newborn baby. Doesn’t everybody?

Yes, I also take homemade Grape Jelly. You can make it out to Mama’s Weeds.

Having missed my daily dose of Vitamin G(reen) at lunch and with a husband attending a dinner meeting – three cheers for a giant salad for dinner! Who’s with me?

If you could see my ass right now you would see that it’s dragging about 1 inch off the floor. I would take a pic of it but I’m just too tired. That’s the only thing that’s saving you from a picture of a bad moon on the rise tonight.

Fingers crossed I manage to click Publish!

• Recalibration
• Laundry Catch 22
• How to Make an (Awesome) Salad

It’s Tuesday. That means it’s a magic basket full of snacks for me and one or more of the offspring. Today’s basket of packed goodness was for me and Ava. I was unexpectedly assisting in her homeschooling class today. Maxine stayed behind with Aunt Ellen while Ava and I forged ahead.

I was of course excited to dig into my MamaBar and give it a real trial run. (i.e., not sampling it over the food processor bowl.) I chowed this puppy moments before getting out of the car to tackle a room full of 5 and 6 year olds for three hours. I needed every last ounce of coconut oil.

Dinner tonight was inspired by Justine from the Confessions of a SAHM. Curried Squash and Apple Soup.

It all started with a lone buttercup squash I snagged the other day. The produce manager told me buttercup is a very sweet squash, so I knew the perfect recipe to use it in when I saw Justine’s post yesterday.

Halved, de-seeded and roasted with a sweet potato at 350 for about 50 minutes. When I could easily stick a fork through the skin, it was done.

What jumped out at me with this recipe was the addition of an apple! A large peeled crispin apple, sauteed with onion in extra virgin olive oil until soft.

Squash and potato removed from it’s flesh, into the pot with the apple and onion and a couple cups of vegetable broth. A tablespoon or so of cinnamon and curry powder, and then cooked for a few minutes before moving the entire contents into the food processor. I usually leave some veggies in the pot to make the soup chunky, but decided today to go wild and puree the whole pot.

This combination of flavors was awesome, the sweet with savory was so good!

Served by candle light with some garlic hummus on toasted Ezekiel bread with salsa.

So since tonight’s dinner was inspired by Justine, the queen of confessions – here’s mine.

My little calorie math project last night has me totally contemplating calorie counting again – or at the very least food journaling – for the month of November. For the past year now I’ve wanted to lose the last 10 “vanity pounds”, as Jillian Michaels puts it. I was reminded last night of how well calorie counting works. Food journaling was what worked for me like nothing else ever had before. It allowed me to bust through my plateau and go on to lose an additional 23 lbs in two and a half months. Writing it down and seeing the numbers is like balancing your check book. There’s no denying the numbers when they are there in front of you. It worked great for me and I’m suddenly feeling motivated to do it again. I got down to the upper 120′s in the summer of 2008 and have been hanging out in the low 130′s for almost a year now. My clothes still fit but they fit better when I was in the 120′s – and I would love to get back there again. It’s what I’ve wanted for a year now! After trying everything Raw Food Detox Diet and Thrive, the bottom line is that I need to pay closer attention to how many calories I eat. At the end of a day, it’s all about the math. Calories in have to be less than calories out and the weight will come off. If I want to see results I’ve got to keep track.

I hesitate to post this. It’s embarrassing. But it’s real so here it is. There’s no denying that it works – so I’m going to do it. I’m going to food journal for a month and see where I end up 4 weeks from now.

Confession over. Time to hit publish.

• Strawberry Shortcuts
• Laundry Catch 22
• Change of Plans

I had the most fabulous run this morning!

But this fabulous run actually started yesterday – with an innocent homeschooling Halloween party where Mama went as a Dirty Hippy and Maxine went as a ballerina.

I don’t know that this was much of a stretch from how we dress day to day, but whatever.

There were lots of fun treats and goodies.

Including some Mama Averie inspired raw donut holes, available in both chocolate and pumpkin.

Lots of fun games and activities too.

Ghost Ghost Goblin anyone? Hmmm, this seems a lot like another game I know with a duck and a goose…

And who doesn’t love some salt dough fun?

Giant rice krispy treats and Halloween chasing games aside, the climax of my story has yet to come! I know you’ve been on the edge of your seat since my opening line.

Yesterday’s party was held at the home of some friends who happen to live in our soon-to-be-new-neighborhood. Their house is just a block and a half from our new house, and yes I totally went the long way around and drove by like the house stalker that I am.  Thanks for asking!

I peppered our hosts with all sorts of questions about city living and our new stomping grounds.  The husband of my friend happens to be a runner and mentioned the neighborhood running group that meets regularly just a block away.  They run three days a week at 6am, all year round. Four to five miles, down the city streets, through the university campus, along the river path, over the foot bridge, through the cemetery to grandmother’s house we go!

Oh!  And they’re going tomorrow morning?  Wanna come along?

Do I want to come along? Do you know how many times I’ve driven by my new house? And now I get to RUN by? Getting my sneaks on now!

Fast forward to this morning - picture me dragging my butt out of bed at 5am to get dressed and drive into the city (and by the new house – of course) to run 5 miles with a group of strangers in the dark and in the rain.

Now picture me doing a little dance of joy! I loved it despite the fact that our route did not in fact take us by the new house. That’s ok, I can just drive by on my way home. No big deal – I do it all the time.

One of the biggest concerns I’ve had about moving to the city was how living in a more urban area was going to affect my running life.  All of my concerns were laid to rest this morning. I can’t even believe the new house comes with a built in running group.  Why wasn’t that a part of the house description?

Hardwood floors, new furnace, updated kitchen, running group… SOLD!

Home again and back in Suburbia, I put together a cereal parfait worthy of eating on Halloween morning.

Bottom Layer: Pumpkin, agave, cinnamon and nutmeg

Middle Layer: Kashi Cinnamon Harvest. I’ve been avoiding boxed cereal like Swine Flu but bought this for the girls and as far as boxed cereals go, I find that shredded wheat is far from addictive.

Top Layer: Sliced bananas, sliced almonds and flax.

All while being observed by a black cat. I know what you’re thinking – she looks like she’s annoyed and ready to claw me in the eye. But really she’s just showing her support for my attempt to create a Halloween feel for today’s post.

Take it from the top!  A good pour of hemp milk.

So that’s it! I’m officially ready to move!  Right now!  No time to Trick or Treat – let’s PACK!

• A Day of Calorie Counting
• When the Garmin Strikes Midnight
• Two Lefts Don't Make a Right

Brownies last night called for a very simple, cleansing breakfast this morning. Cleansing in both body and refrigerator. Who the hell bought all these damn apples anyway??

Speaking of cleaning, notice that barely in focus disaster of counter top back there? That mess was sponsored by yours truly from deserting the kitchen after birthday brownie dessert last night.

So! I’m sporting my stay at home mom outfit today and flashing you the international sign for “Get to Work”.

Yoga pants and inside shoes?

Check!

Toys to be picked up?

Check!

Laundry to be folded and put away?

Check!

Checking account begging to be balanced?

Check-ity Check!

10 AM and kids still in pajamas?

Check!

Yup – it’s a stay at home day for sure. I declare it.

• Confessions
• We Came, We Saw, We Raked
• The Thanksgiving Bowl