Mediterranean Spinach Salad [Low Carb, Clean, GF]

Keep the house cool with this easy to make healthy salad. It has a lot of healthy fats and tons of vegetables that make it a smart pick. Feel free to add additional toppings as desired! 

Guys, I can’t believe this, but somehow this blog is now a little older than a year! Man how time flies. It makes me think back to when this all started. Those were some crazy times. Honestly, though, my life, as you likely know has been super busy and a little on the insane part. I feel like I haven’t made all that much progress into the whole understanding the blog side (ahem fundamentals) of even how all this work. There is so much to learn, but man I need more time! Major kudos to all those bloggers who have already figured so much of this stuff out. It’s tough. Often, I try to delve into some aspect and I usually just don’t have enough time to figure it all out and end up being all like:

Like I mentioned, it’s making me reminisce a bit about the beginning of the blog! So, if you remember, starting it was super easy. I didn’t have much trouble getting my domain site after struggling to mush various combinations of words together to get something that sounded at least acceptable in my head. Even though after the fact, as I had mentioned, I would probably have called it something different. However, I’m perfectly happy with my blog name because you’ve probably figured out by now that I LOVE cinnamon and use it all the time and actually get the big Costco ones (yes…just for me haha).

Anyway, I remember when I got to the part about the theme and figuring out how to design it and all that I was like like..

Just breathe, right? Great way to reduce anxiety. Welp, tried that and then decided to go for it. It has been quite the experience, and I’m realizing more and more that really I have no idea what the heck I am doing. Not only that..I have no idea what most things mean? SEO? Optimize? Boxes? Skins? I find myself googling these words and still having no idea.. which makes me want to make a point.

After I read that sentence these are the thoughts that crossed my mind: 1. Wait a second, I just read that sentence without batting an eyelash that is both awesome (high five brain) 2. No wonder people get confused around medical terms 3. Then my brain shot into rays of questions. “I wonder what the H/H is now? What is the baseline? Are they bleeding from somewhere, and did anyone check an FOBT?PICC? Shoot, what’s their INR and is IR in right now? AH MAN I’M GOING TO HAVE TO GOWN UP AND I HATE GOWNING UP etc. 4. Then, I was like, um brain, stop it. Stop it right now. This is not an actual case that you have to admit. Then, I was like, thank goodness you really don’t have to do that any more. Oh wait, or so I thought, but I still occasionally have to admit people. (Boo).

Now, if I were a lay person being told this I think my response would be more along the lines of “OK, WTF, IDK” (Hehe, see I can abbreviate too). Anyway, that picture is more to prove a point. If you are not medical, you may be like well ..yep..that just went over my head. I’m confused.

I get that! I also know that many medical people forget that we have this crazy language that many people don’t know. (Even most medical people don’t understand my specialty jargon, so don’t feel bad). This is why I take the time to make sure people understand what is going on in order to make them more comfortable.

Ok fun fact, when I was younger (middle school) my friends and I wanted to have a way to secretly communicate during class. Obviously, the most logical thing to do was to learn the Phoenician alphabet? (gah…yeahh..I’ve been a nerd for long while) and wrote my notes exclusively in that for a while.

Anyway, back to the point and to get a bit more medical on you since it’s been a while since I’ve talked about some of this stuff. If you don’t know what these things are, especially if they are in reference to your own medical care, don’t be afraid to ask! Whether it is me, or your doctor, sometimes it is easy to forget that others are not as versed since we’ve been swimming in the language for years and years.

So, if you don’t know ask.  SOOOO, I still need to figure out a bunch of this stuff. Like how do I get wordpress to crop my pictures to pinterest size. I can’t seem to figure it out. I only recently learned how to get my pictures to show up upright haha. Oh man I’ve got a lot to learn. In the meantime, I think you should try out this healthy salad!

How long did it take you bloggers out there to understand how to do all this stuff?

Have any of you readers been overwhelmed by jargon?

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Mediterranean Spinach Salad [Low Carb, Clean, GF]

Author AZ@...And A Dash of Cinnamon

Ingredients

• 3 cups spinach
• 1 T goat cheese
• 1 roasted red pepper
• 1 T walnuts
• 1 T craisins
• several kalamata olives

Instructions

1. Slice and dice your roasted red pepper if it is whole. Otherwise, just add all your ingredients into a bowl, top with your favorite dressing and have at it!

Recipe Notes

Feel free to add any additional ingredients that you desire

As with all salads, the amounts are rough estimates. 

I just top mine with plain balsamic vinegar. 

I link up with Deborah and Sarah’s, and running on happy’s/ the fit foodie mama’s Meatless Monday, #recipeoftheweek, Best of the Blogosphere, Homestead Blog Hop, The Homstead Hop,glutenfreefridays,  #healthyveganfridays,  What’s for Dinner, Sunday Fitness and Food, GraciousPantry