Healthy Cucumber Veggie Bean Salad

Salad:

1 large cucumber, chopped into small pieces
1 can chick peas
½ cup chopped white onion
2 chopped green onions
1 cup fresh spinach

Dressing

3 tbsp olive oil
3 tbsp water
½ packet stevia leaf sugar (or ½ tsp)
1/3 cup rice vinegar
½ tsp garlic
½ tsp onion powder
½ tsp chili garlic sauce
½ tsp low sodium teriyaki sauce
¼ tsp ginger paste (powder works too)
¼ tsp mustard powder
½ tsp parsley
½ tsp freeze dried chives
½ tsp sesame seeds
Salt/Pepper to taste

Grab a large bowl to mix all ingredients in and make the dressing separately. Put veggies into the large bowl initially and top with dressing once made. This probably has at least 8 servings and took me about 15 minutes or so to make. Enjoy!

Open Mic Nite Performance Of "Stop Doubting Yourself"

This handy little poem is basically me advocating for people to stop doubting themselves.



I deviated a bit from the original script due to working on getting more comfortable not having a paper with me, but the original words of wisdom are here: http://dbzmaron.blogspot.com/2014/07/stop-doubting-yourself.html



This was taken at Wicker Mic in Wicker Park, Chicago on 8-29-14!



Enjoy!

Open Mic Nite Performance Of "How to Wield Your Magic Wand"

That one time that I spontaneously decide to roll into an open mic nite because my Friday night freed up, I end up getting to perform at my first intimate show at "The Elevator Sessions" at the Justin Pauly Art Studio on 8-22-14 in River North, Chicago! Performing in front of like 7 people is definitely a lot different than giving a speech in front of 150, but cheers for stepping out of your comfort zone!



The moral of the story is... to stop allowing fear hold you back and start living life how you deserve to live it!



I definitely deviated from the "original script" a decent amount, but here's what I initially wrote: http://dbzmaron.blogspot.com/2014/08/how-to-wield-your-magic-wand.html



Enjoy!

How to Wield Your Magic Wand

And the moral of the story is... to stop allowing fear hold you back and start living life how you deserve to live it! Spoken word. Totally want to perform this! Yup! Enjoy!

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It was the first day of the rest of my life
No… not the first day I was born or torn or scorned or even freeking bored...
But it was that epic moment when I looked up and told myself, “hey, it’s about time that I stop letting the world run me,
Stop letting humanity control me,
Stop allowing fear to destroy me and swallow me whole,
And start being myself for once without even holding back an ounce of genuine…”

Because when you see the sun burn it's brightness toward your eyes at a nice and toasty 7am,
Do you want to spring out of your super comfy bed and be like, “ugh, this sucks”,
Or do you want to be like Spongebob who runs to his burger flipping job every single day screaming, “I’m ready, I’m ready” without being nearly as hilariously irritating as he is?

Think about it for a second…

If you want to take over the world in a non-villainous way, you better start taking action and learning how to be more successful than Pinky and the Brain, Team Rocket or Wile E. Coyote ever were… because in this story, you're the protagonist,

Not someone else... and especially not those lame "spirits" aka your own personal excuses that are erroneously manipulating you to be less than what you're truly capable of...
And causing your brightest potential to be withdrawn from right under your feet...

This is your story, now go enjoy it!

Despite their consistent failure and human-like shortcomings,
Both of which are completely inevitable, The one thing they all had in common is that they failed with pride and without fear...

Fear is the paralyzing enemy of the triumphant as it sucks you into its pit of despair while biting you with its venomous grip.
But a true success is willing to fall on their ass several times over again, and get up to continue running like it was nothing…

Do you want to win, or do you want to lose?
Now is the time to attack,
Now is the moment to live,
And the present is yours for free reign!

Now look up… yes you… look as far above as the naked eye can see… and ponder these words wisely…

When it’s your time to officially claim the top,
You don’t want to flop or drop or crash and burn and fall and fail and NOOOOO!!!
Don’t you dare think negatively,
Because those pesky sorrowful and depressing thoughts are only going to land you a nice and shiny pitch black “Game Over” screen!

It’s time to acknowledge that when you want to do big things that you’ve been destined to do your entire life,
Quit enabling fear to consume you and morph into your demise,
And instead, you’ll rise…
Rise until the angels are singing “Hallelujah", while shining a light at you and giving you a gospel tune that tells you “woohoo, you actually did it yaaaaayyy!”

You’re far better than you think you are…
And I’m dead serious when I say this!
The power is yours!
The choice is yours!
And even life… is all yours!

If you’re “that” hungry for your big break that’s far beyond what your dreams are even creating in your head right now,
Are you ready to wield your magic wand?
Do it!
The only thing stopping you is you!

RIP Robin Williams: Be Mindful of Mental Illness

On August 11, 2014, the genie was released from his lamp for the final time. Robin Williams was quite the character to say the least; he always played the funny guy (or lady) in chart-topping movies such as Aladdin, Jumanji, Mrs. Doubtfire, Flubber, Night at the Museum. Not only was he a movie artist, but he successfully executed numerous performances of hilariousness on the standup stage.

Like many of us who invest our lives inspiring and/or humoring others, there's a possibility of possessing unnoticed severe pain inside your heart. This secret "pain" as society calls it, is depression in the books. To those suffering, when the disease reaches its peak, it feels like we've entered the black hole from hell and are stuck inside forever. All of the love, never-give-ups, and fan mail isn't enough to combat this brutal disease.

Depression is a disease. It may not make our insides deteriorate and our essential organs shut down, but it eats our well-being alive; it makes our minds, souls, and hearts shut down as if they've been ripped to shreds and burned. Some people think mental illness is a phase, all in your head, or even doesn't exist. Others say suicide is giving up, selfish, or even cowardly; in reality, it's not completely the sufferer's choice. Your body is reacting to the desires to free itself from all of the pain and suffering.

After this awful tragedy, people had the nerve to troll his daughter. The media also had the nerve to skew the truth just to gain attention and popularity All they were doing was taking away from what actually happened, which was a beautiful person leaving this world due to mental illness. Plain and simple. Stop over complicating everything, people!

Mental illness is an invisible illness that can become fatal if left untreated. Depression can be caused by chemical imbalances, genetics, situational/environmental factors such as being bullied, and much more. If you see yourself suffering to a point where you can't even function in life anymore, go get help. If you're thinking of killing yourself, there's anonymous lifelines where you can call and talk to someone. They had one of those at the university I attended. At one point, I had to call the hotline on one of my friends after one of his friends committed suicide, which ultimately led to him seeking help. There's even "To Write Love on Her Arms", which is an organization that spreads love to all, connects people to proper treatment, and provides an uplifting environment for spreading the awareness of mental illness.

Getting help is not and should not be a stigma or something "embarrassing". It's the same as going to the doctor if you're sick. I've even needed to seek help at times. The most difficult part of mental illness is admitting you have a problem and going to go take care of it. As soon as you take the first steps, the rest is a recovery battle. When you get help, tell yourself you're worthy of recovery and worthy of returning to the light again. Sometimes, all it takes is a push from one person.

From one star ending their life to another, to reduce the occurrence of suicide, admitting you need help or have a problem is not a display weakness. The desire to make yourself well again is a display of courage and strength. You can triumph through your worst nightmare. I believe in you!

Fire Font Photoshop Graphic

As you can see, I like to have some fun with Photoshop and I believe I made this when I was using Photoshop CS4 because I probably made this a couple years ago. I mostly used the tutorials below because using Google for tutorials is a HUGE help. Instead of making the font have a gradient in it (which I either purposely skipped that step, messed up, or both), I thought it would be cool to have all of the font be made of flaming awesomeness instead and used the liquefy feature (filter) to shape the letters... because fire is fierce! Enjoy!

http://photoshop-dragon.com/Tutorials/Text_Effects/Text_on_Fire.htm

http://www.photoshopessentials.com/photoshop-text/text-effects/fire-text/

Move Forward in the Presence of Tragedy

My response to all the recent tragedies is below... despite the pain we've seen on the news lately, we should still notice the beauty in life, move forward, and be as happy and positive as we can! Enjoy!

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Dear beautiful universe,

If you're all aware of this lovely little fact, the purpose of life is to promote beauty, but do you feel like 2014 has lately been suffocated with tears of blood, mass destruction, and suffering... and more than usual of such tragedies?

Tragedy is not and should not be the central circle of the meaning of life. Life is not some depressing black hole that people keep abusing, despite the fact that we need to acknowledge that life isn't all unicorns and rainbows and we need to know that "shit happens"...

From the mass murders in Israel, to headlines of constant gun violence, and even locking young children in the car, for crying out loud, despite all these terrible things happening, that shouldn't be society's main focus! Let's look past all of this awfulness, devise a solution for the problem, and move forward towards a hopefully bright future...

Unless you're actually in mourning, or even if you're terminally ill, there's no reason to sit there and complain how much the world sucks and how much people suck... complaining isn't going to get you farther than the next person who wants to sit there and witness or join your tirades of discussing depressing topics. The world is actually a happier place than you think. Not only that, but if you focus only on the negative, your world will be negative and vice versa... because according to my guru friend (who's a holistic doctor), life happens in two places: first in your head, and then in the outside world's reality!

There's a vast difference between educating yourself with what's going on in the world and wanting to watch the news or enjoying history in school/in general than submerging your life into the black hole that people struggle to get their pretty faces out of... that would be called a loop, and you don't want that, right?

Life is a game, life is worth living, and despite the constant tragedies of 2014, just keep smiling and keep your heart whole!

With lots of smiles, optimism, and positivity,
Rebs McDuxler :)

My Portfolio Website

My portfolio website is FINALLY at a point where it can be released to the public because it doesn't just have "testing 123" all over it -- www.rebeccaduxler.com --> Check it OUT!!!

This super awesome website (that I coded) is mainly for me to showcase and practice my programming skills, demonstrate my passions for IT and web development, have a "central hub" to show the world everything I do, and for self-marketing purposes.

Enjoy!