Flavored Green Tea, Dinner Out and Self-Esteem

Today I had a different variation of green tea. This one was inspired by Emily and here is what I did. In a one quart jar I placed 5 matcha green tea bags, about 5 dried hibiscus flowers and approximately 28 ounces of cold filtered water and put this in the refrigerator overnight, but two hours is long enough. This morning I added the juice on one fresh orange and strained the tea and served it over ice. By making this tea using a cold brewing method I am maximizing the amount of vitamin C that remains from the hibiscus. The tea was a beautiful pink color and a nice flavor and also had the health benefits from the green tea. I really enjoyed this and hope you will give it a try when you are looking for something other than plain green tea.

Dan is swamped at work and needed to go downtown today to work. *boo hiss* However to soften the blow a little he suggested we go out to dinner. I know you might be thinking, dinner out again? Yep, I am definitely one soiled wife that is for certain.

Dinner out for us is more than just the food or my not needing to cook. Of course we love the food but we also love everyone at the restaurant both in the front and back of the house. Going out to dinner for us is relaxing and a chance to chat with everyone. We are very fortunate to have a wonderful neighborhood place to hang out and relax.

When we walked in Amy told us that our table was ready and that she had a surprise waiting for us and had to go into the kitchen to get it. The surprise was that our Aimee was working tonight. We were surprised but were also very happy to see her. Aimee has finals coming up next week so we didn’t expect her to be working this evening. However Corey was short staffed so she worked a double. Don’t you love nice surprises like this?

I started the evening in the kitchen like always chatting with Ian. Will was making a sauce and had a flaming pan which it turned out was our first dish. He was burning the alcohol off the tequila and infusing it with heat from fresh Thai chilies (with the seeds). As you probably know but now since Will was working tonight it meant that I didn’t have to think about what to order since he had things planned out for us.

The first dish was a tequila and Thai chilie flamed watermelon salad with radishes, cucumbers and red onions. This salad was spicy and delicious. I loved the aroma of tequila that this salad had as well as the heat from the chilies.

The second course was a whole wheat noodle sauce with red bell peppers, snow peas, shitakes, and green onions with a spicy tahini sauce on the side that was so good Dan asked Will what was in it and he never does that.

Our third course was a warm black bean and corn salad with crispy tortilla chips.

The fourth and final course was an arugula salad topped with fruit, balsamic glaze and sliced almonds. This was something we asked for to end the meal on a sweet note.

Other than the hard rain that had started before we left the restaurant it was a fabulous evening. I had a slight problem with Facebook thinking that I wasn’t me and locking me out of my account. At least that was partially resolved when I got home. Facebook is still a little wonky but hopefully I will figure it tomorrow once I have gotten some sleep. *fingers crossed*

Self-Esteem:

Today I was thinking about one of my dear friends and their self-deprecating sense of humor and that led me to contemplate self-esteem. I get very upset when this friend says unkind things about themselves but I also know that my friend isn’t the only person that does this. When any of us are self-critical I believe that we are poisoning ourselves. How you value and treat yourself is telling the world how you want to be treated in my opinion. Conversely when you love and respect yourself others will treat you better as well.

Women seem to have more difficulty being kind to themselves than men. I think that is because we all tend to put everyone ahead of ourselves. Why do we all do that? Also why do so many of us have difficulty thinking positive things about ourselves? Most of the people I know have a tough time finding nice things about themselves. I will be the first to admit that I am a perfectionist and find it easier to identify my flaws than my strengths. However I also know that focusing on what we like about ourselves is always better.

I thought it would be good for all of us to think of (and list) the things we love about ourselves. Most of the people I know find it very difficult to say anything nice about themselves so I thought it would help for me to go first. Here is what I love about myself:

• I love my courage
• I love that I am a survivor
• I love that I am determined
• I love my generosity
• I love that I am compassionate and caring
• I love my long hair and my cheekbones ;-)
• I love that I have time to share my healthy journey which I feel might be making a small difference in the world.

Okay so now it is your turn. Please try to think of at least three things that you love about yourself. If you are inclined to share what you love about yourself please let us all know in a comment to this post. Better yet can you find one thing each day to like/love about yourself?  When I am having a particularly tough week I feel better when I focus on what I like about myself.  I hope the same things works for you.

Happy Thoughts:

• We had a lovely evening out this tonight. Dinner was delicious and the company was excellent as always. It was great to see Aimee this evening which we didn’t expect.  It as also nice to see Amy back at work and looking fabulous after her major surgery. When we talked to Will this evening we heard his presentation earleir this week got an A. It is always nice to get good news isn’t it?

• I had a nice day today catching up on a few things at home. I wasn’t thrilled that Dan had to work today but it was good to have time get a few things accomplished here.  I am enjoying working on my vision board, and it is long overdue.

• I am very excited to be picking up a tray of organic wheat grass from Pam at our CSA Sunday morning. It is going to be fantastic to juice fresh wheat grass tomorrow.  *woo hoo*

• Tomorrow is the first day of our CSA pickup and that is going to be great. I am looking forward to getting back to the market in the morning. Being up so late Saturday night may mean a nap will be in order by that is a small price to pay for fresh local organic produce. *happy dance*

• I finished “The 21-Day Conscious Cleanse” today and really enjoyed that book. With a little luck I will get the review up tomorrow.

• Guess who will be taking off work next week for my birthday? Isn’t my husband sweet to do that for me? I don’t think the weather is supposed to be good but that doesn’t matter since we will be spending my birthday together.

Signing Out:

Since 6am is going to come early tomorrow morning we should have been asleep a while ago. Sorry for such a quick post but I need to turn in soon so that we can make it to the farmers’ market early tomorrow morning. I am looking forward to picking up a tray of wheat grass juice tomorrow morning. *woo hoo*

Talk to you again tomorrow. I hope you are having a great weekend too.