breakfast 3.

whole wheat english muffin with smashed avocado, red pepper and a sprinkle of garlic powder
+ strawberries topped with turbinado sugar

breakfast 2.

watermelon + vanilla yogurt with granola and blueberries
+ whole wheat english muffin with whipped cream cheese

carrot and orange soup.

i made carrot and orange soup.

butter + onion + vegetable broth + carrot + orange juice = glory.
it's light and frothy and sweet and oh.my.word. GOOD.
it made a ton. i have some for lunch tomorrow & five other single servings in the freezer.
you should see how you can get invited over here for dinner asap. it's that good.

roasted garbanzo beans.

i've seen this idea on a couple different blogs, and since it's super simple i thought i'd try it.

you'll need one can of garbanzo beans (aka chick peas), organic if you like.

rinse the beans in a colander until the water isn't foamy anymore.

pat beans dry on a dish towel.

coat them in olive oil and plenty of salt and pepper.
you could totally get creative with the seasonings, which i intend to do in the future.

spread beans on a baking sheet.

place baking sheet into an oven heated to 350 degrees for 40ish minutes
or until the beans are browned and rattle when you shake them.

munch and enjoy.

crunchy and full of fiber (6 grams a serving), roasted garbanzo beans are
just right with a glass of mint iced tea on a summer saturday.

ellie endorsement: "yummy! they taste like chips!"
grayson endorsement: "more!"

simple sweet.

mix in a blender...

...some frozen fruit + some plain soy milk...
(clearly, this is not an exact recipe)

...+ one popsicle

and you'll get a yummy sweet smoothie that often eat for breakfast,
sometimes whenever i want something sweet and semi good for me.

it's not perfect, but it certainly beats copious amounts of mike & ikes, right?

remember, aiming for progress, not perfection.

quineuvos rancheros: a recipe found.

this.is.so.good. seriously, i think i ate it in 3 minutes flat.
i am full but still totally light feeling.
find the recipe here and expect lots of posts testing her recipes.
they all look amazing.

ingredients:

already prepared quinoa;
free-range, organic eggs;
freshly grated chedder cheese

cilantro; avocado; green bell pepper
(pepper from the farmers market, i added this to the original recipe)

green salsa from the texas hot sauce challenge c. 1992
(made in seguin, texas and SO INCREDIBLY GOOD)

salt and pepper to taste

a close-up of the best (and easiest!) lunch i've eaten in a long time.

the blind shall see.

i have a bad habit. i wear contacts longer than i'm supposed to. always.

as such, i figured my right eyeball was hurting the week before easter due to an aged contact. my one-month contacts were four months old. one weird thing, however, was that no matter how much i turned my contact, the annoyance was always all the way at the top of my eyeball.

normally, when i wear contacts for too long, they get cuts or tears or develop deposits i cannot remove. i typically endure this problem for weeks before i cave and get a new pair. i deal with it by spinning the contact in my eye, which relocates the problem. this time, spinning was not effective.

on easter, i could no longer stand it. i ripped my right contact to shreds during church, and went cross-eyed for a few hours until i could coerce my husband into running to the house to get my glasses. (side note: my glasses prescription is old so it really annoys me to wear my glasses. also, i feel as though i've never woken up for the day when i wear them for more than shuffling to the shower in the morning or reading before bed at night.)

i got a new pair on monday and all was well. my right eye felt better and things were good.

for a week.

this monday (as in two days ago), my left eye started hurting in the same spot, way at the very top. by tuesday, it was unbearable. way worse than the right eye ever was. i couldn't open it and it hurt even when i removed the contact.

i called the eye doctor and they got me in.

after several bright lights and some yellow highlighter drops (creepy), it has been determined that i have cuts on both of my corneas.

apparently, when i had my last exam in november, the doctor noted that there was a faint indentation from my contact at the top of my eyeball. because of this, he prescribed some lenses that are supposed to allow more oxygen to the eye. incidentally, these lenses are thicker than others. combined with the fact that i have a fairly high prescription (read: i'm blind), the contacts i was wearing were pretty substantial.

in addition to that, i was told i have "tight eyelids." i had never heard of such a thing before yesterday.

thick lenses + tight eyelids = contacts that CUT YOUR CORNEA.

scary. and rare, they say.

AND the doctor told me that if my prescription continues to go up (it will), it's likely that contacts will eventually be intolerable.

lasik, here i come. as soon as i have thousands of dollars to pay for you.

needless to say, i'm wearing my glasses. and i have antibiotic/steroid drops to use for four days. i go back after two contact-less weeks for a checkup.

weirdest.thing.ever.

me in my specs, cell phone photo style.

(my hair looks weird in the back. like there isn't any. like i have a reverse mullet. ew.)

(lenses with the proper prescription are being ordered. fo sho.)

(won't it be cool, in heaven, when our eyes (and everything else) are perfect!?)