Marvelous Birthday Monday!

I haven’t joined

in a while and oh, boy, do I miss this blog event. This is likely the most positive blog event with optimistic, upbeat, marvelous posts allowing a happy and marvelous start of the week.

The past weeks I have been on the road again, visiting friends in Germany, attending a wedding and now cruising through Italy. How do I afford this? Well, one of the answers is that I can’t really anymore, savings are running out, we are looking for jobs (and oh boy, working with the headaches seem impossible), but on the other hand, crashing on friends coaches, couch-surfing, volunteer exchanges (work for room & board), house-sitting, free entry fees traveling off-season, hitch-hiking, car shares, budget airlines, deals on bus and train tickets and rarely ever eating out allowed a marvelous year running around the Balkans, Turkey, Eastern-Europe and now more Western-Europe and the Mediterranean. Marvelous times on one hand, on the other hand my daily headaches really made it miserable on the other hand…this is why I need to heal…but more on that below.

Some marvelous pictures of the past weeks:

Englisher Garden in Munich

Grapes for Breakfast in Luxembourg

Beautiful Run in Mettlach, Saarland, Germany

Falling in Love with Strassbourg, France

The Unbelievable Coastline on Catania, Sicily, Italy

The Ruins of Pompeii, Italy

This is just a small selection… Today is my 30th birthday and I get to re-visit a small town I used to live in 20 years ago! Crazy times down in memory lane!!! Marvelous!

As said, while I am so thankful for my travels, my marvelous times are over-shadowed by chronic health problems that I seem to be unable to heal… I am not ‘part of the system’, have no family support, and frankly, have no money…even when we get a job (soon, I hope), I am unsure how I will back up treatments… I need help with my healing journey. Asking for help is difficult. Terribly difficult, yet, I put together a fundraising page… Feel free to look at it if you are so inclined to learn more about my journey and perhaps able to help. Either way, thank you for reading and hope you enjoyed my pictures of my stops around Europe.

Have a Marvelous Monday and a Marvelous Week!!!

To support my healing journey, please visit my ‘year of healing’ fundraising page.

My Daily Motivation

Inspiring messages:

Source

Source

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Inspiration…

Trying to live by these words:

Source

Happy Place: tropical fruits

Today’s happy place is a tropical fruit market in Munich:

The truth behind the online life

I don’t mean to be whiny…

…but if you experience something on a daily (or rather hourly…or minute-by-minute) basis it is difficult to ignore it and not talk about it.

I used to be one of those people who shared everything on Facebook. Considering my chronic pain and chaotic life these ‘statuses’ were often negative. At one point I realized that people only care about fun stuff and over-sharing is uncool. So I stopped over-sharing. I share pictures of my travels, share cool pictures and articles I read, post things that motivate me and occasionally share a ‘status’ of a cool experience…but barely ever anything negative, nearly nothing about my health, frustrations, trials and errors, worries and fears. On one level it motivates me to share positive stuff and it is nice not to annoy people. On the other hand I feel like I am lying and faking it…

People think I have a glamorous life. I travel and move a lot and share millions of photographs of various awesome places I visit. I share motivational quotes, pictures about kittens, articles about travel, health and veganism… I smile on my photos. People see that I don’t work and see fantastic places. My life should be perfect, right?!

And when they ask how am I, all they expect is ‘fine, thanks’, so they can go back to ‘jealousy-mode’ of the girl with the amazing amazing nomad life. If I do tell them how am I: experiencing extreme headaches every minute of my day, that my joy is over-shadowed by pain, that I am a barely surviving zombie, that I am out of money and desperately need some, and I do want to work, but I can’t even imagine really working with all the pain. that while I love traveling my main experience is the headache and not the amazing sites, that most of the times I want to just curl up and cry, but I can’t, I have to push through, that I am unsure how long I can push anymore…that I need help, I need treatment, but can’t afford it…that I feel like I am dying from the pain…If I do tell them all these feelings they either close their ears (‘no-no-no, you have an amazing life of travel and no work, la-la-la, no-no-no, I don’t hear your reality!’) or decide I whine and over-share and over-exaggerate and even turn away from me… They don’t want to hear it. They get angry for sharing my true life. They expect me to fake it (and get jealous of this fake life I don’t even experience as they imagine)…

I get frustrated at times… I want to be able to share my pain. Not because I want their ‘sorry’. Not because I want their hugs. Not because I need to whine. But this is my 24/7 experience and it is difficult to hide and ignore it…

Just because someone only shares positives on facebook or elsewhere online it does not mean they are okay… Look behind the online life, ask questions, get interested, be willing to hear the truth… If we know the truth maybe we can understand each other better. Maybe we can even help each other…

Happy Liebster

March was a long time ago, but I still remember that I was nominated for the Liebster award by Quincy. Fun times. Three month later I was again nominated for this fancy little blog award by Adria over at Healthy Vegas Vegan.

Thank you, Adria, you are too sweet. Adria is a fantastic girl eating a low-fat, high-raw vegan diet. Her blog is fantastic and since I am so interested in the 80-10-10 diet, it is super inspiring to follow her journey. Please, jump over to her blog and check it out! As tradition goes, I have to nominate 11 more bloggers (with less than 300 followers*)  in exchange for this nomination. I also have to ask them 11 questions about themselves, as well as list 11 random facts about myself and answer Adria’s questions for me. *Some of the blogs I am nominating have more than 300 followers but I just couldn’t resist, these women are so inspiring! The blogs I nominate are (in no particular order):

1. The Illness Evolution
2. Sick and Sick of It
3. Shugurcan
4. Stilettos and Green Juice
5. The Fibromyalgia Life
6. Fibro Feist
7. The Self Help Hipster
8. Love Life Naturally
9. Megan the Vegan
10. Pauline Hanuise
11. Some Like it Raw

11 Random Facts about Me:

1. I don’t have any cousins, aunts or uncles. Thankfully, I have a brother.
2. I want to heal my headaches, attend IIN, become a health coach and guide others in their healing journey.
3. Lately I’ve been eating several pounds of grapes for lunch. Yamm.
4. My favorite colors are silver and black.
5. I don’t actually like or warm cooked food, but I have difficulty letting go of bread/bakery stuff and chocolate trying to go raw.
6. I managed to live in the US in a non-public-transport-friendly place without knowing how to drive and having a license.
7. I am obsessed with the Big Lebowski. The Dude Abides, man. I am also addicted to 24.
8. I ones saw a pair of twin baby giraffes in the wild in Kenya. One of the best experiences ever.
9. I don’t want to have children but I do want to have a bunch of cats. Cats make me happy and I can relate to them.
10. Sometimes I feel like a crazy teenager and sometimes I feel like a sick 80-yr-old. Yet, I am turning 30 this month.
11. My running shoes are the only pair of shoes I own. Welcome to travel life.

11 Questions from Adria:

1. How long have you been blogging? Since January…nearly 6 month already…how can it be?
2. What are your goals with your blog? Honestly, no particular goals. I just share things as I feel like it and see how it develops. I try to motivate and inspire myself, share my journey, my thoughts, my inspiration… I hope I can connect with others also on a healing journey and I hope I entertain my readers.
3. If there was one meal you could eat every day what would it be? That’s a tough one. I will resist saying ice cream or chocolate. It would either be a huge salad with every kind of vegetable in it or a huge fruit salad…or perhaps a fruity veggie salad?
4. Short or long hair? Long. Very long.
5. When you eat out, what alterations to your menu selection do you usually ask waiters to make?  (e.g. “hold the __”, “sauce on the side”, “add __”) Dressing on the side. No cheese (or any animals products but with salads I often have to ask without cheese).
6. What is your favorite fruit? This is VERY tough! I love all fruits. I also have phases. Nowdays I eat a lot of strawberries and grapes and tend to think that these are my favorites. But then I think of other fruits and realize I love them ALL. If I had to pick one, maybe I would pick pineapple. 
7. Are there any foods (other than animal products) that you avoid in your daily life because you feel they are to unhealthy? I am badly trying to avoid chocolate/chocolaty food/ice cream…the past two weeks I admittedly did a terrible job and didn’t manage to avoid them at all. But I am trying. I do successfully avoid a lot of things because they are unhealthy, no sodas or sugary drinks, no packaged foods, no ketchup, and the list goes on.
8. What’s your typical exercise routine? I run about 35-40 miles a week (4x a week) and do pilates 3-4x a week for about an hour. I also walk a lot. 
9. City slicker or country lover – which are you? I am definitely an all-around city girl. I love nature, I love running in nature, hiking, walking around, being in the forest, hiking up mountains, sitting by the sea…but I need city life, I couldn’t live long-term on the country-side.
10. If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you be? This is a really really tough one because the past 4 years I’ve been living as a global nomad and haven’t actually stayed in one country for over 3 months. I have a long list of countries I still want to live in for anywhere between 3 – 12 months, and many other countries I want to travel in and to. But if I had to pick one country it would be the US because most of my friends live there and I miss them dearly.
11. What is your favorite vegan product?  (Can be clothing, skincare, etc.) I don’t really use products. Hm, I really miss Coconut Bliss vegan ice cream… But I guess that is not a product. I really enjoy using the soap nut balls for laundry. So perhaps that. I never really thought about this.

May Gratitude

After January, February, March and April, it is time for another Gratitude List… here are some of the things I am thankful for from the month of May:

1. Running my first half marathon since 2007 (and after being out with an injury for 3+ years)
2. Third place at the half marathon and prize money!
3. The St. Duje Festival in Split
4. Visiting Zagreb
5. Haircut and highlights
6. Visiting the Budapest Zoo
7. Lots of farmers market visits
8. Strawberry season starting and some amazing strawberries
9. Pancake Sundays
10. Some beautiful runs
11. Visiting Salzburg
12. Visiting Munich
13. Beautiful walk in the English Garden in Munich
14. Visiting Roseinheim
15. Visiting Frankfurt
16. A long email from my best friend
17. Planning a trip to Italy
18. Vegan dark chocolate sorbet
19. Scheduling a free first consultation with a health coach
20. New journal
21. Becoming the new Support Group Coordinator with The Body is Not an Apology
22. Amazing mango finds in Munich
23. Eating fresh figs for the first time ever
24. Packing light for my trip
25. The two headache-free days of the month

 

 

Almond-Cinnamon-Pear French Toast

I am on the road again, currently traveling around Germany.

I’ve been meaning to share this recipe for a while though. Several month ago I introduced Pancake Sundays to our life by making pancakes to my boyfriend on Sundays. One day I decided to mix it up and also spice (or sweeten) up a weekday by making French toast. I wanted to make vegan French toast and I didn’t have bananas on my hand… this is how my Almond-Cinnamon-Pear French Toast came to life:

• 1/3 cup plus 2 tablespoons milk of choice
• 1 over-ripe pear pureed
• 1 tsp cinnamon
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 tsp almond extract
• several slices bread

Mix all ingredients together except for the bread. I shallow dish let the bread slices sit in the batter for about 45 seconds each side then cook it in a pan for about 3 minutes each side on low-medium heat (or as it browns).

I am not my body

Today I was running around the park when someone yelled after me: “Gain some weight in your legs?”

What?! Really?! Nevermind the fact that I hate when people yell stupid comments when I am running. Will “Run Forrest Run” ever get old?! But was yelling a comment about my body really necessary? Did he really need to express his opinion and judgement? Did I yell at him back, “Please, gain some brains and decency.”? No, I didn’t. Maybe I should have.

Gain some weight in my legs? Like it is his problem that I have skinny legs?! Like it was possible to gain some weight only in my legs…because we can all decide where to gain or lose some pounds, right?! Not.

This reminded me when couple of years ago my grandma’s neighbor commented on how thin I was and added “You should gain some weight. You know nowdays big boobs are trendy.” Hello?!?! What?!?! Okay, if I am at it I go get a pair of silicones too, because these babies will not grow into triple Ds any time soon. (Mind you, I enjoy my small breasts. They are convenient for running.)

Since when do people have the right to comment on how we look like and tell us how we should lose or gain some pounds, tone up, grow inches, or alter our looks? There is too much judgement around…unnecessary judgement. Maybe my body is like this because of genetics, maybe I like it this way, maybe I don’t and struggle with it daily, maybe I don’t care, maybe I am working on improving it, maybe I am going through a major illness or personal drama and this is the least of my problem…either way, it is not anyone’s business…

Stop judging the looks and bodies of others. Embrace your body. And let others embrace theirs. We are not only the outer shell of our bodies, we are so much more than that… Read the chapters of my soul instead…

 

Strawberry Marzipan Microwave Cupcake

Because of my headaches I am continuously trying to improve my diet. This means doing my best to stay away from cookies, cakes, chocolate and the like – yes, even if it is made from so-called ‘healthier’ ingredients. Yet, I love baking. I enjoy creating food in general. I especially love creating salads and fruit salads. I not only prefer uncooked food versus cooked, but I do prefer making salads and other raw food rather than cooking up something. Baking is another story – it is cooked and even if it is healthier it is still not really healthy. But I can’t help it, I just love it. I also enjoy baking stuff for my boyfriend. Because I personally try not to eat my creations (a small forkful at the most, usually not even) I got into single and small serving recipes. Usually I bake, occasionally I use the microwave. Most of the time I use recipes I find online. Sometimes I adjust them, add things or substitute ingredients, but still it is always based on a recipe. Today I created something all by myself and I am rather proud! Let me present you with my

Strawberry Marzipan Microwave Cupcake

(Yes, it is purple because of the berries! How cool!)

Ingredients:

• 1/4 cup and 1/2 tbsp of flour
• 1/4 tsp of baking powder
• 1.5 tbsp of sugar (or stevia)
• 2 large over-ripe strawberries mashed (I used fresh, but I am sure frozen ones are fine!)
• 1 tbsp of milk (I used almond milk)
• 1/2 tbsp of coconut oil
• 1/2 tsp of almond extract

Mix all ingredients and microwave on high for about 60-90 seconds, depending on the microwave.

Enjoy!

I am submitting this to one of my favorite little events: