How to Go Vegan: Eat it RAW

Remember when I started this "series" with a first post then never did another one? Me too. But I have newly rejuvenated purpose! Namely, I've put on a good chunk of weight over the past year, and the results are

1. A round, fabulous ass. (I have a flat, square butt when I'm slimmer, so this is fun.)
2. Blood pressure that's above the optimal range for the first time in my life. I'm older than in my last chunkier phase, which was pre-baby. My blood pressure has always skewed normal-low, so numbers above average were a big wake up call.
3. A resting heart rate that is frighteningly high.
4. A room full of clothes I can't wear.

So I'm going to add a lot more plant food to my daily meal plans. When I focus on that, I find the unhealthy foods phase themselves out. But being limited to cooking only on really good days, in my vocabulary, "meal plan" means "have food in the house that I can grab and put in my face." It's really easy for that to mean junky crap food. The solution is ridiculously easy:

1. Buy vegetables.
2. If good day, cut them into bite sizes & pop into fridge. If bad day, recruit husband to do this.
3. On bad days, grab a bunch of them and some salsa or hummus.
4. Put them in my face.

It was a grand insight to realize the obviousness of forgoing a detailed menu makeover in favor of easy-peasy-no-cheesy raw snacks. I'll post my progress as I get my diet recharged, and I'm thinking of recruiting a couple of vegan friends to guest post.

Eat and live yummy, bleaders. Summer produce is here! Get thee to a local farmer's market:)

**GIVEAWAY** Win Some Beautiful, Lexielicious Mail Art

Hello, web denizens! I know that like me, you love the life digital. I'm guessing that like me you also get a giddy buzz from great snail mail.

My radiant bestie is offering a lovely prize for you: an analogue travel art snail mail package. 

She's selling these snail mail goodies in her re-launched Etsy shop, and she wants to offer a free package to Daisybones bleaders! (My beloved blog readers. Totally stole that from Julie Powell.) She'll mail you handwritten notes from the road, exclusive photographs not posted online, found ephemera, and more.

Lexie also created an Etsy coupon code just for us! Use DAISYBONESROCKS at checkout to get 10% off.

I'm crazy stoked for the Montreal letters, because I have a love affair with Canada as well as an all out fetish for la langue française. The line in her Etsy description about a snippet of French newspaper made me very excited.

Win yourself some mail art: Here are your ground rules:

• Enter by midnight, EDT Tuesday June 4th.
• Enter as many times as you want, making sure to post a link from Twitter or tagging on Facebook.
• Here's how you enter:
• Comment on this post. (Make sure you have contact info in your Blogger or Open ID profile.)
• Tweet this post, leaving a comment with the URL of your tweet.
• Share this post on Facebook, tagging or linking Daisybones Art & Words and Alexis Yael. (Like our pages!)
• Tuesday at midnight I'll draw a random winner using the Random Number Generator. The winner will be notified by myself or Alexis via email on Wednesday morning.
• Happy Mail Art!


If you want more Lexie vibes, and trust me, you need this mojo mama's beautiful heart in your life, join us for her 52 Weeks Poeming Project. It's ongoing so you can start now. Also visit the blog, like her Facebook page, and check out her Etsy shop. Watch her blog for more summer travels and get mail from Thailand in August. I'll leave you with Alexis's lovely words:

May all beings be happy.

May all beings know peace.

May love prevail.

May: Catching Up with Molly and Finn

Hi there, bleaders. I've missed blogging. It's been a sporadic thing the past year or so. I'm thinking of starting a post schedule. Maybe a personal post day, a treasure nest day, and a visual art day. I'd love to do daily posts but that's overwhelming to me. I don't think I can sustain writing every day like Alexis. Three days a week sounds reasonable though.

It seems like the blogosphere has changed in the past few years. Twitter went totally mainstream and Instagram exploded and commenting on posts has nearly stopped for smaller blogs. I'm definitely guilty of reading far less and commenting very rarely. I am trying to recommit to the culture of blogging, though. I migrated my feeds to Feed.ly in anticipation of Google retiring Reader, which must be another sign of the decline of blogging. 

Anyway, I've been distracted. When we adopted a puppy who is objectively the most adorable creature in the entire world, I thought I'd probably post a thousand times a week and spam the whole internet with photos. Actually, he came home during a week of severe insomnia for me. After a couple of nights without sleep I go into near psychosis, and the demands of a new puppy were enough to make me lose my shit on a grand scale. When Molly was nervous around his nibbling sharp teeth I screamed at her and then locked myself in the bathroom and sobbed in the shower because I was a horrible mother and she was surely traumatized. That night Shane sent me to bed with a sleeping pill and my sleep cycle got reset. Thank the gods. By the end of last week I was in the proper giddy mindset that normally accompanies puppy parenting. I have a post started about Finn and his official name:

I needed to get all the back story I've accumulated out first. So: puppy. Also, BIRTHDAY! My baby is seven. 

7!

Photo by Shane, who is amazing.

Unbelievable. She's gone through a big shift lately. She's tougher and braver and more fierce. (Except when puppies pounce.) I'm really proud and surprised. She got her ears pierced for her birthday and the grandparents bought her a bike. She topples over and she gets back on. With no tears. This is huge for her. She's always going to be a sensitive girl and an amazingly gentle and empathetic soul, but I'm glad to see her bounce back and face fears more than before. She has very strong opinions about mama posting photos and stories about her, so mommy blogging has been more rare. 

So you probably are in for some puppy blogging.

Meanwhile, life with Molly is Taylor Swift and My Little Pony and Word Girl. We've planned weekly library play dates to a summer reading program, trips to the pool, and some home school fun. I'm going to re-reboot my daily drawings and I'm writing a poem each week in an ongoing project with Lexie. Sign up here.

So this was my May and this will be my summer. I'm excited for a sultry simmering summer ADVENTURE.