My Resolution

I’m pretty slow to start the new year with my resolutions for change. It seems that each year, I am completely burnt out after the growing/harvest/preserving season then jumping right into the holiday season that by the time the new year begins, I only desire to sit and do nothing (ok, I want to chat on Twitter or take naps). And cook yummy food from all that I’ve put up!

I’ve been reading about what several others have been saying their resolutions are and for me, the only major things I need to change in my life this year is to get more exercise and more sleep! I have no problems eating what’s in my pantry as one big challenge I’ve seen people participate in. In fact, I try to live this way year round and am nervous we are going through our canned tomato and sauce supply way faster than I thought we would and I am trying to make the home-canned supply last til next summer! I’m sure it won’t at this rate.

I don’t need to challenge myself to do a 3 week jumpstart your diet challenge which is another big one I’ve seen written about to detox your body on a plant based diet. I eat a plant based diet and occasionally the very nutritious eggs from my own backyard chickens so this is a way of life for me, too. I also like to wait until springtime to do a liver cleanse, it’s too cold for me in the winter to do cleanses like that.

No, what I need to do (and began doing this past week) is something I saw written up on the Huffington Post called “Sleep Challenge 2010 – Women, It’s Time To Sleep Your Way To The Top, Literally.”  Once I read that article, I knew I had to do it. I was resistant at first, I like going to bed between 12-1 am and sleeping in a bit in the morning but with an almost 6 year old boy as my daily alarm clock, I rarely get to sleep past 7 or 7:30 and that’s late for him. So I was getting around 6 or 6.5 hours of sleep each night. I have been dragging and some days, I’ve only gotten about 5.5 hours at night and that puts me over the cranky edge so I can’t function the way I want and need to.

I realize I have to get a minimum of 7 hours of solid sleep at night and preferably 8 hours of sleep every night to feel well. My son sleeps through the night for the past few years and even in his own room now. The only time he wakes us up at night is if he’s sick or had a bad dream. After suffering through several years of extreme sleep deprivation because of him, I should want to go to bed early and get 8+ hours of sleep every night! Why my resistance I wondered? I realized it’s because it’s “me time” for several hours in the evening. After we eat a family dinner, my husband does the bedtime routine with our son then has his guitar playing hour (or more) every night and I clean up and have things I catch up on, books I am reading or tv shows on Tivo to watch! I wind up waiting for my husband to watch certain shows with me and we seem to go to bed too late because of this. He always says he does better on 6 or 6.5 hours of sleep and if he sleeps longer than that, he’s dragging. I’m the other way around so I don’t believe him! Who can function well on 6 or 6.5 hours of sleep every night? Not me!

He is sort of doing this sleep challenge with me because consistent, solid sleep is so beneficial for your body in so many ways and he’s recovering from several weeks of some funky virus invading his body and doing strange things to him. Solid sleep also helps to prevent getting run-down and sick in the first place. Your immune system works better, you have more energy, you look younger and your mental state is in a much better place, too. There’s also evidence that not getting enough sleep makes you gain or retain weight and sufficient sleep helps you lose it!  There really is not one downside to getting your “beauty sleep.” It is quite a challenge for me to get up to the 8 hour mark. I’m working on cutting back on my evening activities and getting more things done during the day.

This past week I’ve been aiming for 7-7.5 hours of sleep each night (by counting backwards from my 7 a.m. wake up time) and I feel good but still tired and dragging at some point in my day. Clearly a sign I need more sleep! Who knew? This week, I (and possibly Michael) will be trying for 8 whole, glorious hours of uninterrupted sleep each and every night. If I can do this, I will feel like superwoman and will be able to really increase my workouts and pretty much revolutionize my world! I like the info in this update from Arianna Huffington about what happened to her after finally getting those 8 hours of sleep each night.

I encourage anyone reading this to give this sleep challenge a try. Lawd knows we all need it!

To Grandmother’s Homestead We Go

We went to visit my Mother-In-Law & Step-Father-In-Law on their 13 acre homestead in Sonoma County, CA in June of this year. It’s a really special place – there are large Redwood trees in the wooded parts of their land and there is also a big creek running through the property. In the middle of it all is their passive solar hand-built house and several large growing areas for their various veggie gardens, vineyard and greenhouse for my MIL’s lavender growing business. The views are beautiful and you can see large vineyards for miles around.

My MIL spins her own wool on her spinning wheel, has a loom to weave it on and showed my son, Leif how to card the fibers and then to spin it on the wheel. He thought this was great fun.

We did many special things while we were there and since my son likes art projects, I thought it would be interesting for him when we took hikes around the property to collect cool looking items we found in nature to build some fairy houses on the banks of the creek. He loved that idea since we have read a few books about this. I think by the end of our trip, he built 5 fairy houses and we took many pictures of them all.

My husband and I took a day off to be by ourselves to celebrate his birthday and go to some wineries for wine tasting and to see some sights around Sonoma County. One place we went to is an exact reproduction of a 12^th century castle just outside of Calistoga called Castello di Amorosa. It was awesome! Such amazing detail work with actual artifacts from salvaged castles – including the stones of the castle – were shipped over from Europe to build it.

Since our son was hanging out with his Grandma and Papa all day on the homestead, they had some fun projects lined up for him, too. My Mother-In-Law knew in advance that we were taking a day to ourselves so she gathered items from local thrift stores to build a “scarecrow boy” the size of Leif. He LOVED this! When it was done, they staked it right in the middle of a new garden bed.

He did a special building project with his Papa, too. My son requested to build and paint “a sculpture.” So my FIL gathered some scrap wood from his workshop and found some paints and Leif said he wanted to build a tree. The two of them laid out the design and then my FIL nailed it together and Leif very carefully painted it green and brown. He decided before we left to give it to his Grandma to hang in her greenhouse “so she could remember him!”

Later that day, they had to gather up some firewood to stack outside their house and my son had a great time helping to load up the pick up truck from the various wood piles in the woods and then help unloading and stacking the split logs by the house.  They would have gone swimming in the creek but it was a little too cool to do that so they built another fairy house instead.  He had a great day alone with his grandparents and we had fun drinking wine, going out to dinner and seeing the sights alone, too.

Café Gratitude opened a restaurant in their town a few months earlier and I was ecstatic to be able to finally go in person! I had purchased their cookbook last year and I think they craft some of the greatest raw food recipes. We ate there 3 different times! Michael and I went to dinner there after our day out alone and saw local musicians play while eating. Such a perfect ending to a perfect day!

On my husband’s actual birthday, we helped my MIL work in her booth at the local farmer’s market. She sells lavender plants of all different sizes and varieties. She cultivates 38 varieties now and is always testing out new kinds to see how well they will do in her area before she will grow and sell them. There is even a white lavender variety named “Melissa” that she grows & sells.  And out of all the herbs I work with, lavender happens to be my favorite. I even had some sprigs of it in my wedding bouquet.

We had a family birthday dinner that night back at the homestead with relatives that live in their area. We drank lots of great wine and I learned so much more about the art of crafting wine this trip since my FIL has been making his own wine for decades. Michael’s Step-Brother-In-Law gave him a bottle of his own homegrown, locally pressed extra virgin olive oil. It is SO GOOD!! I wish we could grow our own olive tree orchard where we live! We learned more about this process, too.

We visited Bodega Bay and played by the ocean (which is always cold and breezy), went to Armstrong Woods State Park which is an amazing place to hike around the giant Sequoias (can you see me in the tree photo below?).  We also visited “Train Town” in Sonoma which was so fun for Leif.

It’s so nice to spend quality time with family and get a fun vacation out of it, too!

9/9/9

Hello Readers! I’ve been away from blogging for a few months now, very busy with the goings on of my little suburban homestead, work & being a mama. Now that school started a couple of weeks ago for us, I have plans to post at least weekly again. Today, 9/9/09, is my birthday and the last time in my lifetime that it will be all 9’s for me. (Can you guess my favorite number?). I’ve been a bit bothered over the aging thing – where has the time gone? I have so much more to accomplish and time is speeding away! So in honor of this being a special day for me, I’m starting off blogging again on a positive note with a little gratitude list!

I Give Thanks And Gratitude For:

• Unconditional Love
• My life & good health
• My sweet, loving & very talented husband & amazing son
• My loving & very old but very healthy pets
• My cute, funny chickens who give us eggs everyday
• My almost entirely renovated home
• My beautiful, productive garden & greenhouse that gives us so much food
• My loving, caring & supportive friends & family both near & far
• The beauty of the natural world I get to see everyday
• Great Spirit, Mother Earth and the Devic realm
• The infinite wisdom of the Universe as it guides me along my path in life
• The wisdom in listening to my Spirit Guides & Angels everyday
• Being able to use my healing gifts & abilities to help others along their path in life
• Being able to work doing what I love and was put here to do
• For us all being constantly provided for by the Universe whether we realize it at the time or not

And now, it’s time for me to take myself and my dog out into nature and do my yearly birthday meditation. I will be back soon with an update and photos of the goings on of our little homestead!

As the Lakota say, Aho Mitakuye Oyasin!

Agricultural Changes Coming To America

Last week I read the article, “Farmer In Chief” written by Michael Pollan. It is probably the most thorough article about our current food and agricultural system here in the U.S. and what we need to do to shift the  agriculture policy to make it better. Pollan calls it his “Sun-Food Agenda” and it is written as an open letter to the next president. In my opinion, this article is simply amazing. And even better, Obama read it and even quoted from it before he was elected:

Obama’s quote (from Treehugger):

There is no better potential driver that pervades all aspects of our economy than a new energy economy. I was just reading an article in the New York Times by Michael Pollan about food and the fact that our entire agricultural system is built on cheap oil. As a consequence, our agriculture sector actually is contributing more greenhouse gases than our transportation sector. And in the mean time, it’s creating monocultures that are vulnerable to national security threats, are now vulnerable to sky-high food prices or crashes in food prices, huge swings in commodity prices, and are partly responsible for the explosion in our healthcare costs because they’re contributing to type 2 diabetes, stroke and heart disease, obesity, all the things that are driving our huge explosion in healthcare costs. That’s just one sector of the economy. You think about the same thing is true on transportation. The same thing is true on how we construct our buildings. The same is true across the board.

Willie Nelson, the musician and the president of Farm Aid, wrote a letter to Obama offering him every resource that Farm Aid has available to assist him in creating a new farm and food policy that supports a sustainable family farm system of agriculture.

From the letter:

There is broad agreement that our farm and food system needs to be drastically reworked. The good news is that the work of building an alternative to the industrial food system is well underway and Farm Aid is proud to have been a leader in this work, something we call the Good Food Movement. The Good Food Movement has grown and thrived almost entirely without the support of the federal government. However, now is the right moment for the leadership of our country to take a role in this important movement. In fact the future of our economy, our environment and our health demand it.

I am waiting to see how this all will unfold once Obama takes office. The way things are run now is clearly not working for anyone on any level anymore. This has to and will change at the policy level and thankfully we have a very aware president-elect that will make sure at least some major agricultural changes take place at that level.  It’s already been shifting at the grassroots level as you can tell by the huge surge in consumers buying organic produce, pasture raised meats, attending farmer’s markets, joining CSA’s and the rising awareness of people wanting to take charge of their health starting with nutrition and knowing where their food comes from.

I especially love that he wants to make school food come more from local farmers and be of higher nutritional quality.  This is going to really help the low income families who rely on this food program sometimes as their kids’ only source of calories for the day.

Here is the plan from the Obama/Biden Real Leadership For Rural America pdf regarding the farm to school program:

Bring Farms to Schools: Barack Obama and Joe Biden will support providing locally grown, healthy foods to students as a part of the school meals program. This will both reduce childhood obesity and grow vibrant rural economies, supporting community-based food systems and strengthening family farms. They will support funding for farm-to-school projects for food, labor, equipment, and staff training. They also will allow schools to give priority to local sources when ordering food. Currently the USDA prohibits schools from requesting local products during the bidding process. Finally, they will expand commodity support to include the school breakfast program as well as the school lunch program.

The farm to school program is already being initiated in one school district in my county right now and I’m hoping my school district will be next to embrace this program.

This is just so great, I’m completely excited that finally I can be happy my government has listened to We The People and will act upon what is best for it’s citizens and not the corporate greed system that has been destroying us and our planet for so long.

My Green Goings On

This time of year is my busiest. I have more orders to fill for the holiday season for my herbal products that I make & sell, the summer veggie garden must be put to bed and all the veggies and herbs dealt with before the first frost (this week).  We are also doing more home improvement projects – installed the last 5 new energy efficient windows our house needed plus we are building a greenhouse with reclaimed materials and have expanded our garden space (greenhouse is incorporated into the new space and acts as part of the fence). We are attempting our first winter garden as well and have to put up the hoops and cover.

Since the bay window I really wanted for growing herbs and sprouts in our south facing window was like quadruple the price of a standard window and we will eventually move, we went with a standard window but my husband, Michael was able to set it out a bit further and now he is building a new sill that will be larger on the inside so we can grow some plants there.  He also did this for the kitchen window so we have 2 spots for more growing.  It’s not a bay window but it is an economical, functional and attractive substitution.

Michael had to cut down an Aspen tree in our yard that really was at the wrong elevation for it to thrive (and was blocking our expanded garden) but decided that he would leave about 9feet of the trunk in tact and build a platform/treehouse structure for our son on top of it. He’s got big plans for this structure with a trap door, some kind of peaked roof and maybe a slide (and of course my request – a very kid proof tall railing!) all with reclaimed building materials, many of which he already has. This is also part of the new fence line of the garden and is next to the greenhouse so it really will be interesting looking in that section of our yard when it’s all done.  Needless to say, we are a bit frantic running around trying to get everything done (although the treehouse will have to wait) and we leave town next week to go to a wedding of an old friend and spend time with other friends and family, too.

And we also are still doing food preservation.  Every year we can, pickle, dry, freeze and root cellar garden veggies.  This year we have amped that up all summer and included more items we have harvested from local u-pick farms and farmer’s markets now that my son is older and able to appreciate harvesting his own food more.   This is important to do especially with the economy the way it is and you never know what is going to happen in the world and if you are not prepared, well, you know.  I just think it’s a good way to live regardless and doing it every year adds a good rhythm to life and is a skill to pass down to future generations.

I still have many posts I want to write about but just don’t have the time at the moment including the part 2 of my detoxing adventure.  Amazing, btw the internal changes I feel and I’m not fully done yet.  I am hoping to get to that update before I leave on my trip.

I hope you all are keepin’ on and don’t let the worries of the failing economy keep you down.  Things in our world are changing for sure but if you are aware and don’t slip into panic and anxiety (which is easy to do when watching the news!), you’ll weather this situation and see that we are all transforming into a new way of living which, in the end, will be great for us all.  Last year we decided to stay put and batten down the hatches and ride out this storm of chaos/transformation where we are hence all of the improvements we’re still making on this house to help us function better here.

Since we are in a big time of change, keep thinking about what changes/improvements you can do that’s economical for your life, promotes your health and adds quality and enjoyment.  Even small changes can add so much and makes you feel so much better.  For example, some of the greatest things ever in making my time in the kitchen better? Drawer organizers and more shelves. When I know where things are and can get it in 2 seconds when I’m in the middle of a recipe, I’m a happy camper.  Being organized and clutter-free helps me function better and saves lots of time.  There is an old saying, “A change is as good as a rest.”  I totally agree.

Eve Ensler on Sarah Palin

I must admit, I’ve been having issues with blogging this week because every time I sit down to write a post about anything, all that I really feel like doing is ripping into Sarah Palin and John McCain.  So, I’ve decided to not post until I could get over it.  My friend Jyoti sent me this piece written by Eve Ensler for the Huffington Post and it really got at how I felt and being that she’s a playwright and a feminist – she summed it up better than I ever could.

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I am having Sarah Palin nightmares. I dreamt last night that she was a member of a club where they rode snowmobiles and wore the claws of drowned and starved polar bears around their necks. I have a particular thing for Polar Bears. Maybe it’s their snowy whiteness or their bigness or the fact that they live in the arctic or that I have never seen one in person or touched one. Maybe it is the fact that they live so comfortably on ice. Whatever it is, I need the polar bears.

I don’t like raging at women. I am a Feminist and have spent my life trying to build community, help empower women and stop violence against them. It is hard to write about Sarah Palin. This is why the Sarah Palin choice was all the more insidious and cynical. The people who made this choice count on the goodness and solidarity of Feminists.

But everything Sarah Palin believes in and practices is antithetical to Feminism which for me is part of one story — connected to saving the earth, ending racism, empowering women, giving young girls options, opening our minds, deepening tolerance, and ending violence and war.

I believe that the McCain/Palin ticket is one of the most dangerous choices of my lifetime, and should this country chose those candidates the fall-out may be so great, the destruction so vast in so many areas that America may never recover. But what is equally disturbing is the impact that duo would have on the rest of the world. Unfortunately, this is not a joke. In my lifetime I have seen the clownish, the inept, the bizarre be elected to the presidency with regularity.

Sarah Palin does not believe in evolution. I take this as a metaphor. In her world and the world of Fundamentalists nothing changes or gets better or evolves. She does not believe in global warming. The melting of the arctic, the storms that are destroying our cities, the pollution and rise of cancers, are all part of God’s plan. She is fighting to take the polar bears off the endangered species list. The earth, in Palin’s view, is here to be taken and plundered. The wolves and the bears are here to be shot and plundered. The oil is here to be taken and plundered. Iraq is here to be taken and plundered. As she said herself of the Iraqi war, “It was a task from God.”

Sarah Palin does not believe in abortion. She does not believe women who are raped and incested and ripped open against their will should have a right to determine whether they have their rapist’s baby or not.

She obviously does not believe in sex education or birth control. I imagine her daughter was practicing abstinence and we know how many babies that makes.

Sarah Palin does not much believe in thinking. From what I gather she has tried to ban books from the library, has a tendency to dispense with people who think independently. She cannot tolerate an environment of ambiguity and difference. This is a woman who could and might very well be the next president of the United States. She would govern one of the most diverse populations on the earth.

Sarah believes in guns. She has her own custom Austrian hunting rifle. She has been known to kill 40 caribou at a clip. She has shot hundreds of wolves from the air.

Sarah believes in God. That is of course her right, her private right. But when God and Guns come together in the public sector, when war is declared in God’s name, when the rights of women are denied in his name, that is the end of separation of church and state and the undoing of everything America has ever tried to be.

I write to my sisters. I write because I believe we hold this election in our hands. This vote is a vote that will determine the future not just of the U.S., but of the planet. It will determine whether we create policies to save the earth or make it forever uninhabitable for humans. It will determine whether we move towards dialogue and diplomacy in the world or whether we escalate violence through invasion, undermining and attack. It will determine whether we go for oil, strip mining, coal burning or invest our money in alternatives that will free us from dependency and destruction. It will determine if money gets spent on education and healthcare or whether we build more and more methods of killing. It will determine whether America is a free open tolerant society or a closed place of fear, fundamentalism and aggression.

If the Polar Bears don’t move you to go and do everything in your power to get Obama elected then consider the chant that filled the hall after Palin spoke at the RNC, “Drill Drill Drill.” I think of teeth when I think of drills. I think of rape. I think of destruction. I think of domination. I think of military exercises that force mindless repetition, emptying the brain of analysis, doubt, ambiguity or dissent. I think of pain.

Do we want a future of drilling? More holes in the ozone, in the floor of the sea, more holes in our thinking, in the trust between nations and peoples, more holes in the fabric of this precious thing we call life?

Eve Ensler
September 5, 2008

Detox Month

Right now I am in the midst of one of the biggest detoxes I’ve ever undertaken.  And that’s saying something since I’ve done many different things over the years. Ten years ago, my husband and I followed “The Body Ecology Diet” for several months to clean our bodies from candida and parasites.  We didn’t have any major problems but Michael did have pretty bad seasonal and some pet allergies.  And some food ones, too.  All of that warranted a good internal cleansing and we did that together.  This was also our first attempt at making lacto-fermented saurkraut (as recommended by the book) which came out badly and we haven’t tried it again until this summer and we are lacto-fermenting veggies like crazy!  We had excellent results from doing this program which really is a good cleansing and very healthy way to live. Michael’s allergies were almost totally gone!

Along with that particular cleanse, we did some colonics as is also recommended in the book.  We really didn’t like the “closed circuit” colonics that we did so I’ve never gone back for them even though I am aware of how important it is to keep your colon clean.  There is a quote from the Royal Academy of Physicians of Great Britain that says, “90 percent of all disease and discomfort is directly or indirectly related to an unclean colon.” Now that is really saying something.  90 percent. That’s a lot.

Being on a raw vegan diet is very deeply cleansing in itself. I thought I was doing enough sufficient exercise to sweat out the toxins that were being dredged up by this cleansing diet but I guess not since I’ve been having weird rashes come out on my skin the past few months.  This is basically past prescription meds I’ve taken and heavy metals, solvents, etc that I’ve been exposed to over the years trying to make a quick exit through the largest elimination organ we have – the skin. It all gets stored away in the liver, one of our most important organs in the body that performs over 500 tasks everyday.  Most skin problems are related to liver congestion or stagnation and the body trying to rid itself from it.  I’ve known this and have done many liver flushes and herbal liver tonic blends over the years to try to keep mine in good working order.

A liver flush is generally a  concoction blended in the blender every morning and drank on an empty stomach for 10 days then a 3 day break then do it again.  Clearly this was not enough to get at the deep seated stuff for me.  I also have been having visions of colonics so I knew it was a message and that I needed to do them again but I just didn’t like the kind I did before and didn’t realize there was another way until I started to read about it in some of my books.

I investigated this other type of colonic that has been recommended by many health experts and this one is called the “gravity feed” method. It is the most gentle way and very effective at cleaning you out.  I found a practitioner in my area (that cured herself of liver cancer) and she is highly knowledgeable of many rather unpleasant facts and stories relating to sickness caused by toxed out people that she has treated over the years. I loved her right away and knew she was the person for me!

Stay Tuned for Part 2 of my Detox Month Saga!

Water, Water Everywhere

For the past few months, I’ve been really not happy with our filtered water that I drink everyday. Our tap water is really very good, it’s originally Rocky Mountain snow melt then it gets treated and comes to our tap. We then filter it with a very high quality double carbon filter to take out the additives that was put into the water. As with everything with me this year, my taste buds have changed so much and now it doesn’t taste as good to me anymore. It’s still just fine for my husband and child and pets, though.

When we lived in the mountains, we had the most pure water (and air) that I’ve ever had the pleasure to drink. Our yurt tanks were filled from a well that tapped into an underground spring that is fed by a glacier and the water has been tested to be even more pure than Evian. We got to bathe, drink and cook with this water everyday. I remember when we first moved down to the valley and got our filter, I was so unhappy with it compared to that water. I eventually adjusted to the (in my mind) sub-par water taste and dealt with it. I can’t do it anymore, I have been craving the “old” water everyday for months now.

The little hippie town next to where we lived in the mountains actually has a pipe in place where this glacier-fed spring water comes to the surface and starts to run down into the creek. You can fill up there all you want for free. This same creek runs all the way down the mountain and into my neighborhood creek 2 blocks from where I live so I think about this special water a lot. I have filled up containers at the source many times over the years but it’s a 45-60 min. drive from where we live now and I don’t have the time to do it that often. There is also a small water delivery co. that fills up at this source and brings it down the mountain to large holding tanks and fills up 3 and 5 gallon glass or plastic water bottles and has dispensers, too and delivers it all over down here in the valley.

This would be a new, extra monthly expense for us and we talked about it in the winter and finally agreed that we would do it because it’s such incredible water to drink and it’s worth it (plus I wouldn’t shut up about it!) and we don’t really buy anything else to drink except occasional juice because we usually make enough of our own fresh juices.

We got our first delivery in July when my mother-in-law was visiting us. Two five gallon glass containers and a stand and dispenser. I was in heaven and so was my husband, son and MIL. Everyone noticed how much better it tasted and we drank 10 gallons within a week’s time! Granted, it was sweltering outside and we were drinking a lot.

There really is something to be said about drinking many thousands of years old “structured water.” The water crystals are shaped like mini snowflakes and when joined together form a honeycomb shaped liquid crystal structure. When water first emerges from underground and pours into a stream or creek, there is so much life force in it and it has the minerals of the earth surrounding it absorbed in it’s structure. It’s a very healing water with no pollution since it’s coming from deep underground. There are all kinds of different healing properties to such a living water. Each source is different and works in different ways depending on where you find it on the planet. It’s important to keep the water cool and away from light to help it keep it’s crystal structure intact.

I’m actually very lucky to have another great water source besides this one that is an “artesian” spring water. But, I prefer the taste and the energetics of the glacier water – and I can get it in large glass bottles so there can be no leaching of anything. Nothing beats the taste of pure Rocky Mountain spring water. It has also won taste test competitions to be rated as the best tasting water west of the Mississippi and is in the top 5 internationally.

We’ve had our second delivery already and every time I drink this water or make a sun tea with it I’m so psyched! It tastes so good and feels like there is body or depth to it, almost like how you would taste different wines for their different flavors and depth. If you think about our physical bodies being made up of mostly water and you then feed it crystalline structured, pure water, well it’s got to be doing something good for us then you would think.

All I know is that I’m extremely happy and grateful to have this water in my life everyday again and so happy that it’s available in my area!

photos: MTGrizzly, Marc_714

Happy Blogiversary To Me And A Giveaway!

Yes, it is my one year anniversary (ok, technically it was yesterday) of writing a blog. I started to write a blog for a few different reasons – to keep in touch with friends and family all over the country, to be able to yammer on about topics that are near and dear to my heart as well as interesting info I came across in my day to day life. The biggest reason I started a blog was to force myself to learn more about the computer – an area I am not that fond of because I really get overwhelmed with anything technologically advanced (psychic readings = easy for me, techie stuff = difficult and boring to me). I guess that comes from being forced to learn DOS and Lotus 1-2-3 in school. Ugh, awful stuff that scarred me for life.

I admit, I use my brilliant, software engineer husband as a major crutch in this area and I don’t like using anyone or anything as a crutch so I had to commit to learn more about how to use the ‘puter for more than just surfing or shopping. A blog was the next logical step for me. My husband was very excited for me to do this and said he would help me out.

The only people I know personally who blog are local friends and they are all techno savvy women unlike me so I began asking them tons of questions (since my husband is a techie but no blogger) and they helped me out quite a bit. So, big thanks to my friends Amy at Crunchy Domestic Goddess, Heather at A Mama’s Blog, and Julie at ChezArtz. You guys rock and you know I will still be asking you my questions as I keep progressing. I also want to mention my friend Nicole (who has a private blog), just because she is a knowledgeable local blogging friend, too.

Over this past year, I have learned so much about the blogging world, many social networking sites (still find this part overwhelming!), learned how to “hack” in a line of code to get my post to do what I want when Wordpress was not cooperating (via Michael) and to not always rely on him for everything on the site. That feels pretty good and pretty independent, too. My fear of all things techie has gone way down and I actually grew to love blogging!

I have also learned that how Michael and I have been living our lives the past 11 years together is now considered trendy and called “green living” (a lot falls into this category) and “frugal”. I had no idea about this until I started writing about topics I knew about and that are important to me and reading other blogs talking about it. We also are not as frugal as some families are, I think that’s from wanting to live and experience life consciously in the moment but still be smart with our money and long term plans. “You never know when you’ll be run over by a bus” is my way of thinking, you can’t always save everything for the future.

This next year, I plan on writing about topics I just never found the time to organize and get to such as living in a yurt off the grid – I found tons of pix we had taken and plan on getting it together finally as well as write about more of my expertise, what I do for a living – alternative medicine and energetic healing.

Ok, enough about me and on with the good stuff – the Giveaway!

In honor of my Blogiversary, I am giving away two fun, reusable tote bags to two lucky winners.

The first one is a 100% organic cotton, long handled shopping bag made by Ecolution that has a funky picture of a tree on it. This company sells 100% organic cotton products sustainably grown in India as well as hemp products.

The other, is a very funny “eco-freak” reuseable tote bag (the size of a dept. store shopping bag so it’s big) made by Blue Q. It’s 100% recycled polypropylene with woven handles. It says on it, “I’m Saving The Planet – What Are You Doing?” All of their stuff is pretty cute and made with the environment in mind. This company also has on staff a group of individuals with disabilities who get to live productive, satisfying lives as a result of their employment at Blue Q. These are the types of companies I like to support – those that help others and who don’t sell to “mega-crap mart” (as they refer to it on their website).

All you have to do to win one of these 2 lovely bags is to leave a comment! That’s it!

If you’d like a second chance to win just mention this giveaway on your blog with a link to this post. If you don’t have a blog, send an email to your friends including this post’s link and cc me on that email for your second chance to win (naturedeva at naturedeva dot net). The winners will be chosen by random.org. Deadline to enter is Sunday, August 3rd, 11:59pm. U.S. residents only, please.

It’s super easy and both bags are awesome! I will be having more upcoming giveaways fairly soon so keep a look out for that!

Update:
Welcome Bloggy Giveaway Carnival people! Thanks for taking a look and entering my giveaway for 2 fabulous totes! Good Luck!

photos: nationalentertainment.co.uk, ecolution & blue q.

Six Months Raw Update

I thought I’d give a little living foods recap of what’s been going on here lately. First off, I truly love eating this way! It’s been 6 mos (75% raw in Jan. then 90-100% raw since then). I feel better, look better, have more energy and sleep better, too. My vision and hearing are great and my sense of smell is more acute as well. I’m also in a good mood most of the time, too.

I’ve noticed so many things shifting in my body including my tastebuds. Foods I used to not like no matter how many times I’ve tried eating them over the years I suddenly crave. Like olives. I used to pick them off my veggie pizza or out of my greek salads and my husband thought I was nuts – he loves olives. I like olive oil in dressings, to cook with or as a marinade but could not stand eating them or the taste of a whole olive. A few weeks ago, I kept getting this feeling that I wanted to eat olives. You could imagine my surprise over this weird and new craving. There is a store near me (a few, actually) that sell all different kinds of gourmet olives so I went and sampled and was so into it! I bought a whole pound of regular Kalamata and another of oil cured black olives, too. I told my husband – who is astounded by the way – that he has to get his own and not eat mine. It’s almost how I felt when I was pregnant and craving meat – I had to have it and I didn’t want to share it. Now that I know I like them, I am going to buy some "sun cured" olives that raw food online stores carry to try those out.

What is interesting about listening to your body is that when it’s healing as mine is doing, it will tell you what you need for your next step in the healing process. For example, I love mangos. Last year when I was eating an organic,clean omnivore diet, I couldn’t get enough but would limit myself to one a day if I bought some (too much sugar for me I thought then). I have a hormone disorder and insulin resistance and don’t ever want to overdo any types of sugar or else I feel like crap and only want to go to sleep. When I went raw this year, I let myself eat mangos whenever I wanted. Some days that would be 3 throughout the day some days nothing. I felt ok, too. I did some research and there is something in mangos that helps to heal the pancreas and assists the body in getting rid of insulin resistance (and diabetes, too). I don’t ever crave mangos anymore, not for a few months now. I have not been tested but I’m sure my insulin resistance is gone. I still eat mangos or put them in my smoothies if they are on sale and I pick some up. I don’t think about them anymore like the way I did.

I looked up some info on olives and they are high in minerals (but I’ve got that covered with all the greens I eat) and they also help to dissolve mucus in the body. That’s interesting to me – my hormone disorder causes small cysts to form in my reproductive area and cysts are formed out of mucus. Also dairy is very mucus forming and having been off that for 6 months now (and I only ate that in very small amounts anyway), I’m sure I’m still clearing that out, too.

I tell ya, the body is one amazing machine and you never really know the depths of it’s intelligence until you feed it what it truly wants – real living foods. It’s so simple but we’ve adulterated our food and our tastebuds for so long, generations, really that getting back to the basics of pure, simple foods is a very eye-opening experience for me especially with healing my body naturally with the plant world. Sure herbs work but only to a certain extent for some health issues (and I really know this from my own experience and from other people’s experiences working with them as an Herbalist). The changing of one’s diet is the real cornerstone for true, complete healing. Everything else is secondary, IMO.

Besides that, I’ve been (un)cooking up a storm! I love to cook so I knew I was going to commit to doing this and bought a couple additional pieces of kitchen equipment that I didn’t have back in January to make this process go smoothly and I’m so glad I did. It was money well spent because I use all of my equipment if not everyday then every week.

I also got myself 2 new cookbooks recently – each one written by a raw chef that owns a successful restaurant in their cities. Oh my God is all I can say over these recipes. They are gorgeous. I’ve been having so much fun whipping new creations up from the books and because it’s hot out I’ve been craving mostly salad type of recipes – even just fresh, green salads straight from my garden with different, amazing dressings I’ve been making (I made a fresh ginger-miso dressing yesterday, so delish). And incredible desserts, can’t forget the desserts! Yum!

Raw, living foods are not only delicious and good for you – even the rich desserts – they are pretty to look at. I want to buy all new plates to show off the food more because many dishes are so pretty and vibrant looking. I think I’m addicted – I want to be a raw chef now!

These recipe books I just bought are a bit more advanced and do require at least some of the equipment used every day. If you want to start out on adding more living foods dishes to your diet, I really recommend getting a good food processor and if possible, a high speed blender. Makes a world of difference and I use them everyday. A great temperature controlled dehydrator is key for so many other recipes including crackers, pizza crusts, warming food up out of the fridge, making cookies, granola, etc. I find it invaluable but if you are just starting out, you can focus on the quick, no dehydrating recipes first. Even sprouting seeds or grains is pretty easy and fun to add to things. A juicer that can juice not only veggies and fruits but also wheatgrass and have the homogenizing plate to make nut butters and ice creams, etc is also used a lot in my house.

We used to go out to dinner more but since I’ve gone raw, I’d rather make gourmet living food at home and go out and do other things (like see live music!). My local city does have a couple of restaurants that feature raw food entrees on their menu but I figure the money we saved by not going out to eat has more than paid for the equipment I bought back in January and use all the time.

I’d love to hear from anyone with any questions or even topics of interest you’d like me to write about regarding raw, living foods. I certainly love to talk about it and love cooking this way so feel free to ask away!

photo from TelAviv4fun.