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__ I still need to wear glasses.  I say “still” because about 3 years ago, I came across a program of CD’s called the Bates Method that claimed that if you followed its method, you could heal your eyesight…in other words, if you needed prescription glasses, this program would teach you how to fix your eyes so that you could see perfectly again WITHOUT your glasses…WHAT??  So, because it was a different and natural approach, I tried it. 

One of the main things the program says to do is to remove your glasses whenever it’s safe to do so (when you’re at home, or reading, or whatever).  So after JUST DOING THIS, by just taking my glasses off at home for about a year (BTW, they teach you how to do many other exercises for your eyes too), I had my eyes checked and they improved a WHOLE DIOPTER, which according my optometrist, is a BIG OLE' IMPROVEMENT.  My prescription went from -2.5 to -1.5 in each eye.  So I am getting there...almost home-free from needing these friggin' things…slowly but surely.  If I actually did all the “guided exercises” I AM SURE I could get my vision back to normal…I just need to make the time to do it.

ANYWAYS, back to "I still need glasses".  My sister and sister in law are big online-glasses-shoppers and they introduced me to this little ditty that has now become an obsession of mine.  I have discovered that you can get very, very good quality glasses online for a flippin' fraction of the price you would pay at an optical store.  In fact, I found a site at which I ordered a pair FOR FREE…I just had to pay the shipping.  You just need to know your prescription and your pupillary distance (the distance between your pupils, which they have fancy machines for at the eye glass stores, but Chuck measured mine with a ruler.  Word.) 

I now have this process mastered and have ordered 3 pairs of prescription, designer glasses online for a grand total of about 65 bucks.  3 PAIRS!!  This is crazy to me…especially since the last pair I bought at an optical store 2 years ago cost about $400.00!  This is just nuts...something is not right with that whole system.

SO, 2 things I want you to know:

1.     If you are in the market for a new pair of specs, go to clearlycontacts.ca.  They have promotions all the time, great service, 365 day full refund guarantee…(I could go on and on).  My last pair from there cost $26.00 including the shipping…amazing.

2.     If you are interested in the Bates Method I spoke of earlier, drop me a line and I can give you more details.

So there you have it!  You don’t need to spend thousands on frames and lenses AND YOU can improve your eyesight all on your own…there is ALWAYS another way my friends!!

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I have to share this with you.  It kinda goes against lots of things that are important to me in terms of nutrition but WHAT THE HELL??  It's Christmas and evidently, most things get crazy during the holidays: 

- we spend an exorbitant amount of time with 4th cousins ("Who are these people again??");
- Christmas baking becomes its own food group;
- happy hour starts at noon (although I kinda like that);
- the grocery store stays open 24-7;
- we think its a good idea to force our children to sit in a strangers lap, who happens to be dressed in a red suit, and pay to have a picture taken while our kids scream bloody murder.  This all says crazy to me.

So with all that in mind, my little bit of craziness doesn't seem so bad anymore!!

Every year at Christmas I make this dessert that Chuck's family goes bonkers for...so much so that they have named it the "Kowpak's".  Its full of all things evil but it is kind of a deadly combination of tastes, and so here it is:

The Kowpak's

Crust:
2 cups white flour (I know...sinful)
1 cup soft butter
1 cup brown sugar (that hurts a bit..)
1 tsp vanilla
1/4 tsp salt

Mix the above ingredients and press into a 9 x 13 ungreased pan.  Bake until golden brown at 350 degrees (about 20 minutes).  Let cool.

Filling:
1 300 gr bag peanut butter chips (I know, I know...PURE SUGAR.  I thought some alarm was gonna go off in the store when I walked out with these.)
1/2 cup corn syrup (blasphemy)
2 TBSP butter
1 TBSP water

Melt above ingredients in a small sauce pan until melted.  Pour over the crust.

Press cashews or mixed nuts into the peanut butter layer.  Let cool completely.

Put 1/4 cup chocolate chips in a small zip lock bag and seal.  Place the bag in a bowl of hot water until the chocolate is melted.  Cut a small hole in the corner of the bag and drizzled over the nut layer.  Let cool completely, slice and serve and then stand back.  There may be a stampede.

So there.  Christmas has made me crazy.  I have scummed  to sugar and hydrogenated yuckiness but I am telling you, IT IS REALLY GOOD.

To all of you, I wish you the best, best Christmas holiday.  Eat, drink, and enjoy "The Kowpak's"!

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_ This is the coolest thing.  Your kids, nieces, nephews, grand kids, WHOEVER, will love it. 

This is what you need to do:

1. Take a little trip to your neighborhood Dollarama;

2. Buy as many packs of glow sticks as you can find (and buy LOTS cause your kids will want to do this again FOR SURE;

3. When it’s dark outside, run the bath (maybe take a little glass of vino and a book or mag in there for yourself while the tub fills…hey, 10 minutes of alone time is NOT to be wasted);

4. Crack open a bunch of glow sticks…crack em, shake em, light em up and throw them in the tub;

5. Turn the lights out, call your kiddies, tell em to strip down and then tell them to close their eyes;

6. Open the door and welcome them to the TWINKLE TUB!!

My kids think this is the single coolest thing.  (I know I’m over using the word “cool” but that's seriously how they describe these stupid glow sticks.)  Carmen and Ella come up with imaginary games in the tub with these things that blow my mind.  Just good "clean" fun!!

(AND there are side benefits to this activity too - it’s cheap entertainment, it gets the kids in the tub pronto, and bathing in the dark has its advantages…you can ignore the gunky ring around your tub like its not even there!)

I cannot, however, take any credit for this idea.  My "brilliant-in-more-ways-than-one" friend, Kal, slipped me a handful of glow sticks as we were leaving her house one day and gave me the low down on what to do.  Brilliant, Kal, simply brilliant.

So bust out the Christmas music, run a Twinkly Tub for your little ones, and lets get this holiday season in full gear!
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Wow.  So many of you have ordered my cookbook!  It makes me so happy to put these recipes in your hands cause there are some doozies in there!  I get really excited to share this stuff because when I find something I like I want to tell everyone about it...and this is precisely what these recipes are...my favorites.

Many of you have asked me what other recipes are in this cookbook and so I have changed the preview so that you can see ALL the recipes.  (The picture above is the Garlic Shrimp Linguine and it's favorite around here...).  Click on the  "deliciously different" link on the right hand side of this page and it will take you directly to a preview of the book.

So there you go those-who-have-asked!!  (I hope the pictures make your mouth water!!)  Again, so many thank you's to Adrienne Huard...your photo's are gorg.  Simply gorg.
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IT'S FINALLY DONE! I've seen it with my own eyes, picked it through one more time, and I now have a completed cookbook ready for you to order entitled deliciously different.  I thinks it's pretty good and I'm proud of it.  I really hope you like it too and find it useful.

GO TO BLURB.COM TO ORDER.  Search "deliciously different" or my name and you will find it.  You'll have your choice between hard and soft cover and it will ship to your door in about a week.

Oh, this feels good to have this done.  It was a labor of love, but I'm glad to have at last given birth to this little baby and put it in your hands!  So many of you have been asking about it and requesting copies and I am thrilled with that!

Please do let me know your feedback.  I made this book for you so I need to know what you think in preparation for the next one!

Wishing you all a fantastic day!!
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(Yes, this is my little Ella playing on the iPad in a bathing suit and dress shoes...she says this is what one wears when playing Fruit Ninja...)
Last year, I really blew Christmas for my kids…like, really badly.  I was on a “I’m not buying any flippin’ toys this year!  Forget it.  Crafts and stuff they need ONLY” kick.  I was SO OVER picking up, organizing, keeping track of all the toys in this house that I thought, I’ll be damned if I’m gunna add to my own misery. 

Well, that “kick” did not turn out so good.  Carmen, after she’d finished opening everything, she looked like a lost puppy.  She said to me,  “Mom, how come Santa didn’t bring me the Snow White costume I asked for?  And where’s my Malibou Barbie?”  Riiiiippppp goes my heart.  (I later snuck a note and 20 bucks on the Christmas tree from Santa saying he was all out of material for her Snow White costume and that she should take this 20 bucks and go buy one herself.  Kinda saved the situation but just barely.)

So how am I going to handle Christmas this year?  A friend of mine said she might just wrap up a bunch of boxes for her one and a half year old...she says it's what he likes best!  I say, YOU GO, LISA!!  Do it while you can get away with it!!  (Not sure that will go over too well with my seven and four year olds however...)

So, I decided last weekend that I would just go ahead this year and buy them what was on their list…yes, TOYS, TOYS, TOYS.

The up side of this approach: 
1. Christmas shopping for the girls was done in one hour;
2. Christmas shopping for the girls was done at one store;
3. There will hopefully be no lost puppy dog eyes this year on Christmas morning.

The downside of this approach:
1. I need to do more cleaning and clearing out here to make room for the pile of toys I just bought;
2. I’m not sure these toys are REALLY going to cut it this year, especially with all the electronics lying around that the girls love to play with.

I mean honestly, is a pack of Polly Pockets REALLY going to be played with when they have Bike Baron on the iPad to play with??  I dunna know.  I said to Chuck last weekend (as I was doing the breakfast dishes, while HE was at his iMac and CARMEN on her iPod Touch pretending to text, and ELLA was on the iPad playing Atomic Fart) “What in the world have we done here?  What kind of monsters have we created by giving them access to all this technology?"  Chuck’s response was a shrug and he said, “NOT teaching our kids how to use this technology is like NOT teaching a cave man how to make a fire.”  Sage parenting advice or a serious Apple addiction?  Mmmm…I’m not sure which…you be the judge.

So there you have it...I have done the unthinkable and bought my kids toys for Christmas.  I admit defeat and could not find another way to effectively tackle Christmas this year.  I must be getting old and soft.  (Well, old for sure…this morning I found some more greys in the “drapes” AND the “carpet”, if ya know what I mean.)

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I am overwhelmed with junk right now.  Others in my family would not call "junk" what I call "junk", but if I don’t use it, continually have to pick it up and there are a zillion pieces to it, then IT. IS. JUNK.

Now that summer is over and everyone needs to be inside more, it seems like there is just more stuff lying around all the time.  More crafts, more toys, more clothes, shoes, bags…ugh.  In our tiny little house, it really gets to me…badly.  Plus, I can’t throw everyone outside to play as easily now so it just seems like there is more milling and mess making going on. 

In some ways this excess is exciting for me because it means I have reason to throw things out!!  Yippee!  I LOVE to get rid of stuff.  My theory:  if we aren’t using it someone else might!  So this basement of ours is going to get its ass kicked this week…I am going to go crazy mental on it and trash half the stuff down here.  (Realistically, I’m just making room for the onslaught of annoying toys the kids will most likely get for Christmas.  Ugh again.)

This past weekend, Chuck and I took the girls to Minneapolis…a little 4 day road trip to spend some good time together.  We stayed at the hotel where the Water Park of America is located, which is right next door to the monstrous mall, the Mall of America.  Nothing like visiting the good 'ole US of A to remind us of the extreme excess we seem to have to have created in this world.  From the obscenely humongous food portions you get at restaurants, to the size and scope of our shopping malls, to the 8000 kids rides at the mall and alllll the toy and clothing stores, to the unhealthy, huge size of so so many people.  One cannot help but think, what are we doing with all this excess?? 

So I came home inspired to get rid of some of OUR excess.  Like I said, the basement is my first victim.  Next up, Chuck and I have decided to do a cleanse for the next 30 days…we're giving up all grains, sugars, sweeteners and breads…everything our body doesn’t really need and what we all seem to eat to excess.  We did this cleanse a few years ago and it was awesome.  By eating only proteins and meats, veggies, berries, nuts, seeds, good fats, and raw dairy, your body shifts from being a sugar burner to a fat burner, which is what it was designed to be.  The only thing different we will do this time around is allow ourselves root veggies like potatoes, yams and carrots…because after all, a life without potatoes is no life at all. Period.

So here I go!  If you need any toys, clothing, kitchen stuff, etc., there should be BAGS of it outside my front door in the coming days!  Hopefully I won't get too carried away.  (If you drive by and see my kids sitting on the front step with “FREE” signs around their necks, then I’ve overdone it.)

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Carmen, Ella and I spent a ton of time last week at Chuck’s TV studio.  I think Ella was always so keen to go because of the 24 hour snack table, or as they say in showbiz, the Craft (as in Craft Services) table.  Ooooh, it's just a kid's delight and a parent's nightmare – candies, cookies and all things chewy, brightly colored licorices and sour things and red dye #40 in 99% of it.  JUST the things to keep one functioning at their PEAK all day long.  NOT.

Carmen is my rules kid – she follows them TO. THE. LETTER and has a guilty conscience like not too many others I know.  Ella, she thinks rules are for other people.  At the studio, she would always ask, every day, to have the junky candy and of course, I would say no.  She would say ok and walk away and pretend to go do something with the sound guy or go hang with her peeps, the production coordinators.   Once, though,  I found her holed up, face down on the couch in the back of the studio, pretending to be sleeping.  She had snatched some jelly beans, the little rat…she had her eyes closed and everything and was sloooowwwly putting jelly beans in her mouth like no one would notice.  Tsk.  (I have to admire her spunk though.)  So, BOO to the Craft Services table.

Twice we decided to stay for lunch and both times I wished we hadn’t.  The caterer they had (who, in fairness, was really good last year) was bringing food that was clearly re-purposed from some other function that happened days ago.  Some of it was not even edible.  There was sushi one day and the rice on the rolls was so hard it looked like wax...like one of Dr. Greenie's experiments gone horribly wrong.   It was bad, bad, bad.  This makes me mad to see people being fed food that is shit.  Proper nutrition is such a vital part to having a productive day…and these guys and gals at the studio work LONG, long days and this is their main meal for the day and it sucks.  It upset me.

So I talked to the boss (I have a LITTLE pull over there) and asked him to cancel the caterer for the remainder of the shoot.  THIS is a job for someone who really cares about eating healthy, who loves to prepare food for others and to have them enjoy it…someone who will prepare fresh, delicious food…and in that moment, I became a caterer!

I have 3 days this coming week to prepare food for all the cast and crew on set (about 20 people) and I am very, very much looking forward to this!!  I truly do derive such pleasure in having others eat what I’ve prepared and to love it.  It was hard to decide what to make but I think I have a very solid menu planned that includes some great, healthy desserts and homemade juices.  Oh, this is going to be fun!!
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Have you ever come across those people (say, the cashier at Safeway, the dude pumping your gas, your hair stylist) who are SO happy, SO joyful, they just exude positivity and they just seem to LOVE what they do?  They seem happy to be alive!  Ever wonder WHAT THAT IS??

For me, I find it inspiring to watch and be around people who are living the kind of life they want to be living, and doing EXACTLY what they want to be doing. There is something magical and joyful about witnessing someone LIVING their true calling, watching them BE who they were meant to be.

I was watching Oprah’s new show yesterday, Lifeclass.  If you haven’t seen it, it’s just Oprah, sitting on a couch with the camera in front of her, no hoop-la or massive production or anything, it’s a simple show.  I have to say, having watched my fair share of her shows in the past, I think this is her best show yet.  She just sits and talks about what she has learned and discovered about herself and shares this knowledge with those of us who are watching.   Call me crazy, but she is mesmerizing, to me and to millions of others.  She has an appeal that is different from the usual appeal of most celebrities.

We live in a celebrity-obsessed generation and we are glued to and fascinated by these people for silly and superficial reasons.  Usually all our attention goes to those celebrities who are:
1) gorgeous and skinny; or
2) sporting a look or hairstyle that everyone wants; or
3) going through some kind of train wreck in their life and it’s plastered all over every news reel and tabloid and we can’t tear our attention away from it. 

But Oprah doesn’t seem to fit into ANY of these categories:
1) she’s not skinny OR gorgeous (she has said so herself);
2) she’s not exactly a fashion icon and NO ONE is copying her hair doos;
3) other than her work, she leads a pretty stable/boring life and has been with the same partner for longer than most celebrities would even hope to. 

So if we don’t love Oprah for the reasons we USUALLY love celebrities, WHY DOES SHE HAVE SUCH A MASSIVE APPEAL?

I think it’s this...what you see is her 100%, authentic SELF and she is doing what she was meant to do – teach others what she has learned through her very own life experiences.  When she is speaking, she comes from such a place of authenticity that you CANNOT HELP but be attracted to her.  She is speaking her God's honest truth and a light and wisdom just radiate from her.  She SAYS she wants to help others to live their best possible life, and I believe her when she says that.  I find her so fascinating and even though I don’t always agree with what she says, I am always impressed and inspired by her ability to just be herself, and that being herself is good enough.  At her core, she is a teacher and you can tell, she loves to TEACH.  I find this an awesome thing to watch.

I get the same kind of feeling when I am watching my husband, Chuck, performing in his studio, filming his TV character, the lovable mad scientist, Dr. Greenie.  Chuck is full, full of talents, great at so many things, but when I watch him perform, it is CRYSTAL CLEAR that he is in his zone, in his pocket.  This is what he is supposed to do because in the studio, you FEEL it...you can FEEL his energy.  He comes completely alive and is so sure of himself and what he is doing, and he is SO GOOD at it.  I marvel at him and I love to be around that kind of energy.  He inspires me to continue to strive to BE and BECOME the person I want to be, to find ways to use my own life to help and teach and inspire others in some way.

And on that note, Ella and Carmen and I are off to the studio to hang out and rub shoulders with the soon-to-be-very famous, Dr. Greenie!  It’s a great day to get inspired!!

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While I’m picky about what I eat, I DO LOVE to eat baking and sweet stuff.  They key is to know how you can prepare delicious, flavorful, wholesome "treats" that you and your family will LOVE, AND ones you will feel good about serving.

I wanted to give you a little sample of what's to come in my upcoming cookbook, Deliciously Different.  My girls have been clamoring for a chocolate cake.  YUM.  One of my favorite "treats".  Yesterday, Ella and I make an awesome one…chocolaty, moist, tender-soft…delish.  The difference with this cake is this:  I made it with NO SUGAR.  I know to some, you’re thinking ‘big whoop”.  But I know there are MANY who understand the pitfalls of a sugary diet.  Sugar suppresses your immune system, destroys the collagen in your skin, is toxic to your liver, is the #1 cause of tooth decay...on and on and on...this list is loooong and deep. 

Preparing foods with little to no refined sugar is easy to do.  Most recipes can be modified to replace the sugar with something better for you.  The original recipe for this cake came from a friend of mine (thank you Mary!!) and it's a keeper.  I have tinkered with the ingredients a bit, I've used all organic ingredients and it's super simple to make:

Organic Chocolate Oatmeal Cake

½ cup oats covered in 1 cup boiling water.  Let stand until cool.

Using a hand mixer, combine:
½ cup softened butter
1 cup unpasteurized honey
2 eggs

Mix together in separate bowl:
1 cup flour
4 tablespoons cocoa
½ teaspoon sea salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1 teaspoon baking powder

Alternating, add some of the dry ingredients and the oatmeal mixture to the butter mixture and mix together.  Do this until you have combined everything into one bowl.  Make sure its well mixed.

Pour into 8 X 8 greased baking dish and bake at 350 degrees for 40-45 minutes (or until a toothpick comes out clean fromt

Top with fresh whipping cream or vanilla coconut ice cream and fresh berries..AWESOME.

YOU. WILL. LOVE. THIS. CAKE.  Have fun making, eating, serving and SHOWING your family and friends there is a different and BETTER way to eat treats!

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