The L.A. Dime

Ready to start your holiday shopping? Well, Sophie’s school certainly is encouraging us to do just that. They are holding a fundraiser where 40% of the profits go to the school.

If you are so inclined, please check out the following website and enter our school code to see the various items available.

http://www.innisbrook.com/credits and enter the school code: 105484. The next page you’ll come to will ask you to enter the “sellers name”…please enter: R382408F (that’s Sophie’s number which tracks how many orders there are under her name).

You can choose from gift wrapping, chocolates, magazines/books and/or gourmet food items. If you do choose something, you can pay with your credit card and the order will be shipped directly to your home.

Please know that there is absolutely no pressure to buy anything, just wanted to offer it up.

One of Brad’s yoga friends from twitter is a nutritionist who was nice enough to study his food logs over a 2 week period and give some very valuable and easy to implement recommendations. While we cook at home at least 5 days a week and thought we were doing well in regards to lean meats, lots of veggies and mostly healthy options, it turns out that we are still quite carb-heavy and could use even more leafy greens.

One of the suggestions she had was to make these breakfast smoothies….with kale and spinach. I know, doesn’t sound very tasty, but you get to add whatever fruit you’d like and even a bit of honey for sweetness if you so desire. Ready for a new adventure in eating, hoping for a little weight loss and liking this option to add more greens to our diet, we gave it a try on Sunday morning. And guess what?…..they’re yummy!!! We’ve been making these every morning this week and while we’re still trying out different fruit combinations, we are pleasantly surprised with how tasty and filling they are.

Here’s the recipe in case you want to try it out yourself:
- 2 cups of frozen or fresh fruit (feel free to mix 2 different kinds of fruit, 1 cup each)
- 1 cup filtered water (you can substitute juice but that’ll add some sugar)
- 2 big leaves of fresh kale (stems removed)
- 2 big handfuls of fresh spinach
- 1 heaping tablespoon of Chia seeds

You may have to blend the greens in slowly. Put the chia in last on a low setting as not to crush them. We add a little flaxseed oil. If you’re not using juice, you can add a little honey or sweetener.

Thank you so very much Lo!! For more from Lo, check out her site, www.yisforyogini.com.

Trying to unload some extra “stuff” that’s taking up room and could benefit someone else, I am selling my maternity clothes and breast milk pump…..know anyone? I’ll make them a great deal!

http://losangeles.craigslist.org/sfv/bab/1978227878.html
http://losangeles.craigslist.org/sfv/clo/1978229708.html

We’ve been a Netflix family for many years now. We love the convenience of being able to choose which movie we’d like to see and not be tied to movie times that might not always mesh with what’s happening in our lives at that moment. Furthermore, it saves us a ton of money as we can get unlimited movies for only $15/month, while one movie ticket out here can run you about $12.

While we have 2 separate queues, since our movie preferences are quite different, I did convince Brad to watch my latest selection – “Food, Inc.” with me last night. His initial response (which I actually also heard from quite a few others that I asked if they’d seen this flick) was: “I’d rather not know”.

Having read that the movie was a realistic and therefore frightful look into how our food is made and what it’s actually composed of, did indeed seem like it might leave us never wanting to eat again – but the way I look at it, being uninformed/ignorant about it might be even worse.

So, last night we took a chance and watched it. And we were shocked. And saddened. And angry. And enlightened. I won’t spoil it for you because I’d really encourage you to watch it yourself but here’s what we’ve committed to doing:
- Eat less meat
- Buy more at local Farmer’s Markets
- Read even more food labels

So, check it out yourself….you owe it to your health….and the agricultural future depends on you to take a stand.

On a different note….I am soooo excited and looking forward to “Eat, Pray, Love” coming out soon!! I absolutely loved the book and of course, Julia being my favorite actress, this one I am going to have to break my own rules and see it as soon as it’s released…in the movie theater…with a box of Bon-Bons in hand:)

Every two years, our household experiences a 2-week window of extreme “country rivalry” and competitive comments made about anything and everything we can think of to make our own native homelands sound, look or seem better. This year’s winter Olympics was no different. During the opening ceremonies, while I was utterly embarrassed by the horrible color choices and outfits of the German athletes making their way into the stadium (seriously?!?!??!), Brad suggested we have a bet on total medal count at the end of the games. Thinking that I should have a fairly decent shot, considering that winter sports are a major past-time of many Germans, I took the bet and announced my reward to be a week’s worth of back massages from Brad. Brad ended up never coming up with what his prize should be in the case he won, but we immediately started tracking the daily metal counts, poking fun of each other and cringing every time the others’ country won. Well, for those of you who followed the games, you now know that I lost. It’s disappointing yes, but then again, considering how much larger this country is in both population and space, not sure it was a fair bet to take on after all.

More importantly that our bet though, I wanted to write this post to say  a few things about “national pride” and what these Olympics once again reminded me of. Anyone that knows me well, knows that I am deeply ashamed by my country’s history and tend to avoid the topic of our past as much as I can. I don’t even watch movies that have to do with our history, the Nazi regime or the wars – I by no means want to push what we did under the rug or believe that we shouldn’t learn from those mistakes, but continuing to bring it to the forefront through movies or tv shows, I simply can’t bring myself to support those efforts. At the same time of feeling this guilt, I am also quite protective and proud of the great accomplishments in science, technology and environmental advances we’ve made. I have not and don’t ever plan to give up my German citizenship. I speak to my daughter in German and am committed to not only teaching her the language but also about its culture and traditions. I plan on taking her for visits as often as feasible to stay connected with her German relatives and experience the country first-hand. She has a German (and American) passport.

“National pride” is something that most Germans today don’t feel or ever show. We know better.  We simply can’t. You would be hard pressed to find a German flag, t-shirt or coffee mug with the German flag on it (even as a souvenir). Watching the German athletes these past 18 days however – seeing how they came together as a team, as a competitor, as a country – I couldn’t help but feel excited for them; to feel like their hard work put into excelling at their craft was ok to be shown to the world and it was ok to cheer them on and maybe even be proud of. I can’t help where I was born. I can’t change the past. I have wonderful parents who taught me to see the good in everyone, to forgive mistakes and to focus on what each of us can do to make this world better.  I try to live with one foot planted firmly in where I come from, not ever forgetting that part of my upbringing and how that’s made me who I am today, but also with one foot in the future where I have the opportunity to make good choices, raise thoughtful & caring individuals and find a way to have a positive impact.

So, to wrap up – congrats to the US for winning the medal count. Congrats to Canada for putting on a fabulous Olympics. And Congrats to all athletes who worked incredibly hard to even make it to this level of competition – medal or not, your dedication and commitment to being the best you can be is certainly an inspiration to me.

This year marks the 4th year I will be participating in the “Light the Night Walk” to honor my grandmother Ruth who passed away due to leukemia and all the others struggling with the disease.

Due to a friend’s wedding, I actually won’t be able to walk this year but am still very interesting in raising funds for this worthy cause. I know times are tough and everyone has something that they support, I would however so very much appreciate any support you can lend. Simply click on the following link to make a donation: http://pages.lightthenight.org/los/WarnerPk09/TRiddell

Thank you so very, very much!!

Ride your bike for  a good cause!  My brother, Brian, has partnered with Hopeful Lutheran Church, Bromley Christian Church, and a whole slew of generous and well-known Cincinnati/NKY area sponsors to host a fun, family bike ride October 17th called The Tour de Fright. There will be food, activities, a costume contest, and two bike rides of different lengths. Nearly all of the proceeds will benefit United Ministries of Northern Kentucky.  Visit http://tourdefright.com/pages/home for more details and to register for the ride.

Dada and Bophie headed to the park this morning where the one thing that she talks about as soon as she recognizes where she is and loves the most right now (the “ming”, aka: swing) was broken. Dada did his best to explain that because the swing was broken, Sophie wouldn’t be able to use it today. He did his best to distract her and all she could do was stare and try to process. After about 5 minutes, she turned her back, started to walk away and has said “broken ming” every 3 minutes since then. All afternoon…and into the evening. Even when Dada told her in the car: “Sophie, I love you”, she responded with: “broken ming”.

In other, and much, much happier news, our dear friends Mark & Faleena finally got to meet their baby girl last night. Caitlin Marie was born at 10:44pm, weighing 8lbs, 1oz and is doing great. We had the pleasure of meeting her today — she looked us right in the eye and through her hiccups, let us know that she was going to be a lot of fun to be around. Congrats you guys!!

NPR had a story on today about the “denomination factor” as an emerging trend, brought on by the current recession. The denomination factor states that people are more willing to part with change, than bills. A recent study showed that when one group of people was given dollar bills and another group was given the same amount of money, but in coins, the group with the coins spent it all while the group with the bills, kept most of it.

The story went on to discuss how people feel like they’re not spending as much when it’s “just change” and the person conducting the study went as far as saying that if she were in a position to make recommendations to President Obama, she would tell him to start circulating more dollar coins into the economy and even consider making a two-dollar coin.

Of course, “just spending” is partially what got us into the current situation but what I’m wondering is — what have been some ways you’ve cut back or figured out how to keep more money in your pockets?

I just received this email from Victor K.  But what else would you expect from the cinematographer of American Pie: Band Camp?

A little girl’s prayer to God:

“Dear God, in this year of need, please send clothes for all those poor ladies in Daddy’s computer……!”
Amen