Organic Produce Delivered Right to My Door

A while ago, I saw a Groupon for 50% off organic fruit and vegetable delivery from Tampa Bay Organics.  I don't know what took me so long, but I finally used it this week.  This morning, I woke up to a big box full of fresh, organic produce on my doorstep!

It contained:

1 each Celery
1 each Eggplant
2 each Tomatoes
3 each Ginger Gold Apples
1 each Grapes, Black Seedless
2 each Nectarines
1 each Mixed Baby Greens
3 each Yukon Gold Potatoes
4 each Bananas
1 each Avocado
3 each Oranges

There's nothing too exotic in this box, so I'll probably just make a nice salad with the veggies, maybe a little eggplant parmesan, and just enjoy the fruit.  Everything smells so good and looks so fresh!

The Groupon was $20 for one of their Medium sized boxes normally priced at $38.  I'd say that's a decent amount of organic booty delivered right to my home for that cost!  There was an ice pack in the box to help keep everything cool and they say that if you're not going to be home when they deliver, they'll put it into a cooler if you leave one out for them.  You can choose to make substitutions to your box and they let you choose your delivery schedule.  I haven't decided yet if I'm going to become a regular customer yet, but if I do, I would probably drop down to the small box and maybe do it every other week.

Are you a member of a CSA?  I'm sure you get all kinds of amazing produce!  I know they can get expensive, so do you feel like the cost is worth it?  I'd love to hear your thoughts, so please share in the comments below!

Simple Joy Sunday

Here are some things that made my week happy...

Purging!  I am so not an obsessive shoe girl, but my closet was actually pretty full of them.  I'd buy shoes for special occasions and then they would sit there for years (occasions to get *that* gussied up don't come too often).  I actually had shoes in my closet from about 15 years ago!  I have a brown grocery bag FULL of shoes that are falling apart, that don't fit, or that I haven't worn in years.  I love clearing out unnecessary things and making space; donating to a worthy cause is a plus, too.

I'm having a lot of fun learning Wordpress and building my new website.  There's so much to learn but it is a lot of fun!  See more in my post here.

I joined a new Meetup group called Sticks and Twigs Nature Girl.  The main point of the group is an appreciation of nature and the outdoors.  They have some fun stuff planned already including a hike in a local nature preserve.  I'm really looking forward to the opportunity to meet other women with similar outdoorsy interests!

I started the next phase of my workout to kick my ass and get into shape: Jillian Michaels Ripped in 30.  As you may remember, I *loved* her 30 Day Shred, so I'm really looking forward to this!  If it's anything like the Shred was, I expect the workouts to be totally kick ass and expect great results.  (This is only Day Two, so no review yet.)

Lastly, I was driving into my neighborhood on my way home from work one day and had to stop.  There were a few ducks crossing the road.  =)

What made you smile this week?  I'd love to hear, if you'd like to share in the comments below!

New Project: Learning How to Build a Wordpress Website

I'm so excited to share with you a new project!  For a while now, I've been thinking about having a complete website home for Athena's Armoury & Apothecary.  Sure, I've got shops on Etsy and Artfire, I'm on flickr, and then there's this blog, of course, but I want one single place to have it all.  I want to be able to share articles with you that would have a permanent home in addition to having a shop and blog.  I want some place to have it all together, that I can design myself to have the same branding across all platforms.  But I don't know a thing about html, designing a website, nor can I afford to have someone build it for me.

Recently, I attended an Indie Biz Chicks webinar featuring Angela Wills from Marketers Mojo about how to build a Wordpress website.  Angela's straightforward demo made Wordpress look incredibly user friendly and I started thinking about using it myself.  At the end of the webinar, Angela very generously offered those of us attending, a discount on her  Website Design Mojo e-course.  I thought it was still a little pricey for what I can really afford right now (not a comment on what's included, but rather on my finances), but then I started doing some research.  I couldn't find another e-course that includes anywhere near the amount of products/services that Angela's Website Design Mojo contains.  Additionally, with what is included in the course, not only would I have a website in the end but I would also be learning new skills.  Skills that eventually, I may be able to use as services for others.  Lastly, the amount of this course is literally a fraction of what it would cost to hire someone to build a *basic* website.  This e-course would be an investment in my future, so I decided to go for it!

This is only week two (the course is six weeks long) and I've already learned so much!  Angela's videos contain so much information, she replies to e-mails super quick, I've learned from other people's questions in our weekly group webinar, and Wordpress itself is super user friendly.  I'm LOVING this course.  There is a TON to take in, which occasionally gives me brain fuzzies but that's okay.  I'm learning a lot and having fun doing it.

One of my first orders of business for me was to create a landing page.  My domain name is on the business cards that I've been giving out for a few years now and was originally just being redirected to my Etsy shop.  I wanted to make a landing page for my domain name so that I could continue to play with the website on the back end and my customers could still find me online.  If you go to the Athena's Armoury & Apothecary website, here is a screenshot of what you will find:

It isn't too fancy, but it accomplishes exactly what I had in mind.  I may have to revise the progress and due date (as of now, I have it set for November 1, 2011), as things go but it's my goal to have the site live by the end of the year at the very latest.

I'm so excited about this new venture and can't wait to share it with you!  Stick around this blog for updates on how it's going and, doubtless, there will be some kind of grand opening sale when it goes live.

You Are a Masterpiece: 2011 Love Your Body

Love Your Body: 2011 Poster Contest Winners: Category 2 Winner

From NOW:

"For more than a decade, NOW Foundation's Love Your Body Campaign has been calling out the fashion, cosmetics and advertising industries for promoting unrealistic images of women. The campaign encourages women and girls to celebrate their bodies and reject the narrow beauty ideals endorsed in the media...

If you're tired of being bombarded by retouched pictures telling you how women should look, if you're done with advertisers portraying women as objects to be consumed, if you're ready to talk back, then join us."

YES!!!!!!!

Where Were You?

Ten years ago today, my city, my home was attacked.  Ten years ago today, a high school friend was an EMT responding to the call and died.  Ten years ago today, I was on tour with The Vagina Monologues in Vancouver, on the opposite side of the continent in a different country.  Our Canadian friends were horrified and so completely supportive of us in our time of need.  I know none of us will forget where we were or who we were with when we got the news that the Towers fell.  It's something that will be with us for the rest of our lives just like Pearl Harbor or when Kennedy was assassinated.

It may seem strange, but Budweiser released this commercial to pay tribute to the fallen, to the city, to the country... and it gets me every time.

A Special Pink Warrior Fundraiser

Race for the Cure in St. Pete is coming up in only three weeks and a friend and breast cancer survivor needs help meeting her goal.  I met Yetta through the Florida Herb Society and she helped support me last year when I was walking and fundraising for the 3 Day.  Money is super tight right now, but I still want to help support her...

From now until October 1st (the date of Race for the Cure), ALL proceeds from my Pink Warrior Collection will go toward Yetta's fundraising.  There are a couple pairs of earrings and a couple bracelets listed there now, but if these sell out before Yetta's Race, I will list more to go toward her fundraising.

To donate to Yetta directly and find out more about her, visit her donation page for Race for the Cure.  As always, thank you so much for your support of this cause!!

Fixing up the spare bedroom for my mom

Guest post written by Kim Turner

I've always been sad that my husband and I found jobs a few hours away from my mother. I dreamed of when I was a little girl living down the street from her and letting my kids get to spend so much time with her. Well it exactly didn't end up that way. But now she's coming to live with us. i think that it will be great for the kids to help her around and in turn she'll be better living with someone else all the time for health reasons.

I'm going to fix up the spare bedroom for her and was looking online for some nice decorations that I could use for it. While I was doing that I ran across the sitehomePROIMPROVEMENT.com. We've been having air conditioning problems and I thought now would be as good of a time as ever to get our system replaced, so I'm going through that website to do it.

I found these really nice looking picture frames and I'm putting some of my favorite family photos in them to hang on the walls of her room. Of course she's going to bring some of her things too.

Brought to you by your friends at http://homeproimprovement.com

30 Day Shred Success Story

The past couple of weeks have been pretty busy with work and some stress, so I hadn't had the chance to update you on the 30 Day Shred but I did finish it right before I got busy.  And it was AWESOME.  Jillian totally kicked my ass and even though it was hard, I loved it!  I felt myself getting stronger the whole time I was doing the program and it left me feeling good after every workout.  Sure, some days were harder than others and I was a bit over eager for progress at times but it was totally worth it.  Unfortunately, during the last couple days of the program, I was dealing with a shoulder injury which prevented me from doing it totally full out.  Yup, I was frustrated and disappointed by that mainly because I wanted to finish strong.  There's nothing I could do about an injury, though, so I maintained proper form and was still able to finish the program.

I can't believe I'm doing this because these photos are embarrassing on so many levels, but in the interest of possibly helping motivate someone else to get healthy and give this workout a shot...  Here are the before and afters.  The before shot was taken one week into the program and the after shot was taken about three weeks after I finished it.

1. 30 Day Shred - Before, 2. 30 Day Shred - After

To give you a quick run down of my results: I lost about 3/4" off my biceps, I lost 2" off my waist, about 1/2" from my hips, my chest and thighs strangely stayed relatively the same.  My weight fluctuated around the same mark during the program and my guess is that it's because even though I was losing fat, I was adding muscle tone and muscle weighs more than fat.  Strangely, a couple weeks after I finished the Shred (and even though I was physically active with work, I hadn't been working out), I weighed in again and I had lost 4lbs.

To sum up: LOVED the workout, LOVED the results.  Next workout planned:

Friday Finds: Portland, OR

Scott and I have recently been having a love affair with Portland, OR.  The fact that there are farmer's markets everywhere, the city is walker/biker friendly, it's eco-friendly, artsy, chock full of independent business, has amazing coffee/wine/beer, and has tons of outdoorsy, recreational activities in addition to city life makes me love it all the more.  I was there once while on tour with a show and didn't get to experience the city as much as I'd like, but I want to go back.

We Belong in Portland Print 5x7 by Little Canoe

Portland Transit Token Cufflinks - Oregon by QA Create

Hollywood Theater - Portland, OR -photograph 8x12 by Youngbell Photography