Meet BiG Thinkers Robyn Openshaw, Majora Carter and Angela Stokes-Monarch

I want to just take a few moments to acknowledge the different participants we had on the Believe in Green event.  Green Smoothie Girl, Robyn Openshaw. We picked her to help us kick off this event, because she knows how to keep it real. Some of our guests are known for their extremist points of view, but depending on where you’re coming from, these ideas can be a bit overwhelming.

Robyn knows how to speak to anyone and help create a comfortable gradient with objectives that feel realistic. She also is the single mom of 4 children (3 of which are teenagers) and so she knows how to shop on a budget, multitask, run a business and still make time for healthy living. You can sign up to access her interview here:

I am delighted to present Majora Carter.

Major was so busy we had to reschedule this interview about 4 times!  That’s probably part of the reason that when the interview started, she thought I was just another annoying journalist.   Jimmy the web wonder worker actually forgot to edit the part where Majora told me to look online for the answers to the questions I was asking!!

*gasp!* She thought it was a print interview.

I’ve never felt THIS worried that I’d be met with one word answers during an interview. She was a tough nut to crack, but once I managed to speak a few of the words that resonate with her, she actually ended the interview by calling me “sweetheart.” I received a lot of great feedback about this call. Majora was the first person to help create a public park in the South Bronx in over 60 years!!

If she was a tough nut to crack, it’s only because that’s what it takes to make things happen where she lives. The thing you need to know about Majora is that she’s seen a lot. She grew up in places you and I have never really known and she CHOOSES to live there still because she’s committed to making things better. I suggest you sign up to catch this interview and for more information about her, visit her website or catch her super-inspiring TED talk!

The next si-star to grace our BiG stage with her presence was the lovely Angela Stokes-Monarch! What a treat to connect with her again. She’s come along way from being 160 pounds overweight and while in the beginning her motivations were to lose weight and improve her personal health, she’s now inspired by her ability to touch the lives of tens of thousands of other women and men around the world.

I invited her to take the BiG stage because she’s invested a lot of time recently in learning more about sustainable living, and she’s nearly achieved that ideal for herself. When you sign up to catch this interview you’ll get to hear about some of her favorite resources for growing your own food and sustainable living, and you’ll also find out what she wanted to be when she was a little girl and how, in a certain way, that’s exactly what she ended up doing!!

You can sign up to access these calls for FREE at any time, but I suggest you fork our the ten smackeroos that will go to helping the Girls’ Club, too.
Thanks again for your support!

Shavasana and Smoothies: A Sweet Combination!

There are so many yummy things I could write about this week that I don’t quite know where to start.

Hmmh, well, for starters, I guess I’ll share what I recently wrote to Tracy, the lovely lady the Raw Divas selected to be my BES buddy during a recent 30-day Body Enlightenment System. Turns out, Tracy and I only live a few hours apart. We’re sure to meet someday. Right, Tracy?

Although we have concluded the “official” length of our BES journey (and can take it again whenever we want at no additional cost), Tracy and I have still been exchanging e-mails. Maybe not as often as we did during the BES, but we are in touch nonetheless.

In a recent email, I shared this with Tracy: “…..Talking about yoga, during my Picture Lady presentation of Michelangelo in my son’s class today, the children got to lay in Corpse pose (Shavasana) as some of us read aloud about Michelangelo’s life. Several of them had watery eyes at the end of the reading due to ultimate relaxation. It once again showed the power of that simple posture. I could tell they felt its benefits. I am thinking about checking to see if my son’s teacher will let me do a yoga-specific class with them (for about 30 mins) before the school year ends.

“Because Michelangelo loved to study nature, we spent time outdoors. And, because he had to lay on his back when painting The Sistine Chapel, the children got to experience what that process must have felt like. They taped paper to the bottom of their desks, laid on their backs and drew pictures. They experienced, firsthand, that painting that way was no easy task.”
The next day, I took smoothies to the children.

Talking about smoothies………

My Vita-Mix has arrived!

Another recent highlight for me is what many of you have probably already been experiencing for a long time now — A Vita-Mix!!! Oh, yes, I finally have one of my own now.

When I saw that I could pay for the latest Vita-Mix model (5200) in three payments — and that I could return it for a full refund within 30 days if for some reason it wasn’t what I was expecting, well, I knew I just had to go for it, and you just can’t beat the 7- or 10-year warranty.

In a few short days after placing my order, the box holding my spankin’ new Vita-Mix was at my door. Now that I’ve used it, there’s no way I’m sending that bad boy back. It’s a keeper! I’ve been whipping up the creamiest of smoothies in what seems like no time at all, and I really like the bigger container. It’s like an open invitation to try more and more new things.

Heidi and JS from RawFoodRightNow, who also have the 5200 series, recently shared this with me:

“When we first got our 4500, it catapulted our raw food intake and variety. We just love our blender and it’s the best thing in our kitchen, hands down.”

“Have FUN with it,” they said. “We know you will!”

Yup, they are RIGHT! Not only is it fun, but I find myself looking for any and every green to blend. This has got to be the simplest way to increase one’s green-food intake!

Off I go to blend chard, kale, parsley and mango! In probably less than a minute after putting the ingredients in the Vita-Mix, I’ll be drinking my meal.

Tell me, what green dish “cooks” on the stove that quickly? You can give me a Vita-Mix over a stove ANY DAY!

Cheers,

Penny