Vegan What I Ate Today: March 2015

Several years ago I used to do a post every Wednesday, recapping the food I had eaten that day titled, "What I Ate Wednesday." It was a fun way for me to share some of my favorite foods and recipes, as well as document my adventures with Avery, back when it was just her.  But it became a little cumbersome to post weekly, so I had to take a break from it (for 2 years!).  But after several subscribers have requested to see what I eat in a day, I'm bringing it back.  I plan to do a video/post  once a month featuring what I ate for one of the days. So let's get started with my first post on the topic for the month of March...

If you've read my blog for a while now you know I follow a gluten-free, vegan diet.
So here's my food for the day:


No time for the video? Here it is in picture form:

5:00 AM Warm lemon water: 8 oz. warm water + juice of 1 lemon

5:20 AM: Pre-workout snack: peanut butter on toast

I use this Food for Life Sprouted Gluten Free Bread with Trader Joe's Organic
Creamy Peanut Butter.

Workout: 50 minutes on the treadmill, intervals 2 minutes running, 2 minutes walking, repeat. And as you can tell from the picture below, someone decided to join me this morning. Ironically the one morning I decide to film, Mila wakes up at 5:30 AM, when she usually sleeps until 7. Guess she just wanted to be a part of the video/pictures. So she entertained herself with her old bouncy seat, that we call her "Baby Lazy Boy", one of her favorite movies (Barbie: Princess and a Popstar) and some books as you can see in the video. 

6:45 AM: Breakfast smoothie. I make one smoothie and share a portion with
Mila (as Avery is not a fan). 

 Morning smoothie recipe:

• 1 1/2 scoops Sunwarrior Chocolate Warrior Blend
• 1 1/2 cups of Trader Joe's Rice Drink
• 1-2 cups organic spinach
• 4 frozen banana halves
• 5 frozen strawberries

Blend + serve.

By that point I usually head upstairs, take a shower, and get as ready as I can
before Avery gets up.

Then Mila gets her smoothie.

This pic is blurry, but that face cracks me up!

8:45 AM: Morning snack #1: Fruit bowl, 1 orange + 1 banana.
Other than my smoothie in the morning, this is the only fruit I eat all day
as it seems to mess with my digestive system if I eat it later in the day
and combine it with other food. 

9:45 AM: Peanut Butter Cookie LARABAR

10:30 AM: Morning snack #2: 2 Gluten-Free, Vegan Pancakes with
Earth Balance Vegan Buttery Spread and Trader Joe's Organic Strawberry Jelly.

Then around 12:00 I start warming up lunch in my toaster oven. Read here
about how and why I don't use a microwave. 

12:10 PM: Lunch: 1 Hilary's Eat Well Veggie Burgers with a little Daiya
Smoked Gouda Cheese sliced on top, roasted "sweet potato rounds" as we
call them, and Trinity Hill Farms Ketchup and Barbecue Sauce...all while
pumping and working on school work. 

1:00 PM: Drink up time: Daily Chia Seed Drink: 2 cups water+ 3 Tbs. chia
seeds + 1 packet of SweetLeaf Stevia + juice from 1 lemon. I drink this
from around 1:00 to 3:00. 

2:30: Afternoon Snack: Tres Pupusas Corn tortillas stuffed with black beans and
corn) no-gmo and gluten-free.

5:15 PM Green Juice: Time to make green juice with my helpers/snackers

Green juice recipe for the day: 3 stalks of celery, 3 leaves of "red kale" which
gave it that more brown hue, 1 gala apple, 1 knob ginger, 1/2 lemon (all organic).

6:30 PM Dinner: Chipotle! After a busy day and being short on the ingredients
we needed for the dinner I originally planned we decided to get a crowd
pleaser: Chipotle To-Go. When at Chipotle I get: brown rice, Sofritas, guacamole,
grilled veggies, mild salsa, and corn salsa. I skip the chips there and instead
use Sprouted Blue Corn Tortilla Chips from Trader Joe's (as seen in the video).

I usually eat about 1/2 of my meal and save the other 1/2 for leftovers the
next day. The girl's usually have a quite a bit of leftover guacamole, so I
borrow their's for my leftovers too.

Dessert: 2 gluten-free, vegan chocolate chip cookies...

...with frosting! Recipe to come next week!

Then I'm done for the day. I try to stop eating around 7:00 or so and I got to bed around 9 or 9:30 PM.    Unless I'm up late finishing a blog post (like this one) and in that case a second round of pancakes may be in order!

Did you see any food you like or currently eat? Share below and look forward to seeing you all for next month's "what I ate" post!

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Today is My Birthday! And a Request...

Hey greenies, today is my birthday and I'm this year I'm turning 30! Now I'm not one to have a big party, usually I just have a small get-together with my family. But this year I thought it would be fun to have a little "virtual party" here on the blog....since I'm turning the big 3-0!

So instead of getting me a present, I'd love it if you could share which Ashley's Green Life video/post is your favorite. As a blogger I can see my stats as to which video/post has the most views or the most comments, but I would love to hear which one is your personal favorite.

Now it can be an older video or a newer one.  It can be one of the videos of my girls, one about a green tip, or just a recipe one.

Either way, let me know your favorite and either why it's your favorite or how it's impacted your life.

As a "thank you" for your present, I'm going to take a little trip down memory lane and show you some pictures from my past birthdays. Word of caution, some pictures are pretty grainy/digitalized as I had to take iPhone pictures of old pictures and scrapbook pictures...I'm just amazed I found as many as I did!



No time for the video? Take a walk down memory lane with me here: 

Just born.

Turning 2.

Turning 3.

Turning 4. I love this look on my face...kudos to my mom
for making that rockin' Barbie birthday cake!

Turning 7. Only I would be this excited about a book called
Sky & Earth!

Turning 9. In love with my Samantha American Girl Doll and Beethoven 2 Dog
It's probably hard to see here but every year when I was younger my mom would
make me a birthday shirt to wear with "shirt paint" (back when shirt paint was
really cool) and I always loved seeing what cool design she came up with.

Turning 11. Enter what I call "boy phase" this is a 3 or so
year period of my life where I had short hair (thanks to my
own doing because I refused to take care of my long hair)
so yeah, my hair was very "boyish." 

Turning 15. Longer hair is back, yeah! Here I am super excited
to get an Applebee's gift certificate, I loved that restaurant back
then. 

Turning 19. Brandon is in the picture now,
we had been together for about a year
when this was taken. I'm guessing we probably
spent this birthday going to see a scary movie,
our favorite to watch back then. 

Turning 21. You can bet I had a pretty low-key 21st compared
to most. Complete with a homemade cake and a movie.
(The flowers are part of the scrapbook page I took this pic
from in case you're wondering.)

Turning 22. Here we are a few months before
getting married. Back when Brandon had
long hair!

Turning 23. I remember this one because I think
that's a new yoga mat behind me in the big box. 

Turning 25. Last birthday as a blonde. With my mom this
time. Are our cheeks identical or what? ( :

Turning 26. About 31 weeks pregnant with Avery.

Turning 27. Avery was about 9 months old.

Turning 28. Grainy cell phone pic, but
I love seeing what Avery looked like.
She was about 18 months here.

Turning 29 last year with Avery who was almost 3. 

Be sure to follow me on Instagram to see the picture I post tonight of my 30th birthday!

Be sure to check back in on Sunday to an early birthday present I got this year and how I'm using it to help me go green!

Thanks so much for taking the time to share your favorite video/post and for all the support you've given me over the past five years that I've had this blog. I couldn't do it without you guys and I'm so excited for the videos to come this year!

Okay, now I'm off to eat some of my gluten-free, vegan pancake birthday cake!

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31 Weeks

Hey there greenies, long time no see! Sorry for my absence, I went back to my teaching job a few weeks ago and life has been pretty busy ever since.  As you can see, Mila has been growing right along and I truly have been feeling really good. As I tell all the my friends and family, "She is treating me pretty well." So thanks for that Mila!

This week's photo background: So in honor of my job and being back to work, this week's photo location is outside my school!

One thing that I love about teaching 3-5 year olds is that they hardly even notice, or comment about my ever-growing belly. It often takes me saying, "You know Baby Mila...in my belly..." and they're like, "Oh that's what that is!"

Here I am in my preschool classroom (clearly I was feeling
stripes for this week's photos!).

I really appreciate their innocence to my belly right now and to not be nagged and told daily, "Whoa you are getting big! You're about to pop! When is that baby coming out, tomorrow?" To them, I'm just their teacher who reads books, plays with them, and of course dances around the room from time to time.   ( :

My students "checking" in on Baby Mila.

Questions of the week:

1. How big is the baby (with Avery's help)?

Oh boy did a spunky little princess join us for this week's photo shoot!  During the potty training I did with Avery this summer, we spent a lot of time in our living room, learning how to use her portable little pink potty and as a result we watch a lot of movies...specifically Disney princess movies and now she is so hooked! Her favorite princesses include: Cinderella (as seen by her dress above), Rapunzel, Bell, and Ariel. So thanks to her Grandma Cheryl and Papa Jerry for this fun, pre-Halloween costume that she loves to wear almost daily (even with the over-sized gloves!).

Mila's head of lettuce "food size" this week, lent it self perfectly for dancing too, which Avery did after we got the official picture for the week out of the way!

Time to dance Mila!

Then my little "Cinderella" went inside, took the lettuce and told us, "I going to make you a salad...you wait a minute." This is what was waiting for me when went in the living room...

Who knew Cinderella had such great salad-making skills?!

2. What I'm eating...

Pancakes are my favorite right now! Usually I like my "Sneaky Spinach Pancakes" but during this pregnancy, I've been craving just  plain ol' pancakes. Well, gluten-free, vegan pancakes that is, but still lots of pancakes!

3. Favorite moment of the week: 

A funny story came from being back at my teaching job and being "this pregnant". I still feel great and have no problem getting up and down and all around with my students, but sometimes I forget just how big I really am!

Here I am re-enacting how Baby Mila "blocked" the one
of our vocabulary words this week!

So while reviewing our "vocabulary words for the week", which are displayed below my interactive whiteboard, I was pointing to the picture/words and when I got to the last one (Pete the Cat)... no one said anything! I was like, "We just read this story and we even made a pretend Pete the Cat at our table activity, why doesn't anybody know this?" That's when my para in the class chimed in and said, "Umm, Ashley, Baby Mila is kind of blocking that last picture there!" Those poor kiddos couldn't see a thing, no wonder it was so quiet. Ha! I couldn't stop laughing... not exactly a problem I had before I was pregnant! Let's just say I'm a little more mindful of my belly placement/blocking now. 

See you in two weeks for the next update!

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