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!

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.

My Twilight Zone

We went to a wedding for an old friend this past holiday weekend which was in Omaha, NE. We live in CO so we had to basically drive through the entire flat section of CO as well as the entire state of NE.

Now I know I live a semi-sheltered existence in my county of many aware people who keep up on things, are concerned for the environment, what they eat, getting out and exercising and even spiritual enlightenment for some. I guess I’m just not comfortable witnessing the devastation of the earth by large, corporate mono-crop farmers (most likely all using evil Monsanto seed and products). It was tough for me to drive through all of that and see hardly any trees, just mono crops and then feedlots of cattle who were crammed inside the fences and we saw very few areas in the state of free grazing cattle. I kept thinking, we slaughtered the Native Americans to do this? I just felt so bad for the earth and the animals. There was so much sad energy emanating all over the place there. My husband felt the same.

We finally get to Omaha and it’s more of the same except with small clusters of new housing communities and strip malls and office bldgs. It felt to me like everyone was walking around asleep, completely unaware and just towing the line and believing all the b.s. fed to them. I did hear that there was a Whole Foods somewhere in the city so that gave me some hope for some conscious people but then I heard there are a bunch of transplants living there for big corporate jobs like our friend moved there for.

The wedding itself was on this very nice horse property and there was a pond with ducks, geese and bullfrogs, big trees to climb and of course, lots of horses. All the little kids there had a blast just from engaging with nature. Leif loved the bullfrogs in the pond.

There was a woman there with 2 kids. She was our friend’s next door neighbor. Her son was the same age as our son and they kept running off and were constantly standing at the edge of the pond. She was with her 1 year old daughter by the pond and told us she’d watch Leif while we went in the lodge bldg. for food. A few minutes later, her daughter falls into the pond so she scoops her up and leaves the 2 boys who were all the way on the other side of the pond alone, says nothing to them or us. Michael and I were watching them all anyway because she seemed odd, like she was heavily medicated or something (but I later found out that she was not, many people there acted like this). I take off my heels and run all the way around the pond so as not to have my very clutzy child fall in the water and drown before I get there.

Needless to say, I was a little annoyed that this mother would just walk away and when she saw me running, she was like “oh, my daughter fell in the pond, I have to dry her off!” Man, I just felt like shaking her to wake up and pay attention and wound up taking turns with Michael watching both boys all afternoon until she left.

I was surprised about the food at the wedding. We thought it would be something amazing because this friend is very gourmet – loves to cook and loves coming back to CO and meeting up with groups of people at different ethnic restaurants because he says the food sucks in NE – all steakhouses! Clearly, it was his wife’s choosing of the caterers.

There was not one thing there that I could eat – not even a carrot stick or lettuce leaf or piece of fruit it was all barbeque! I wound up eating a little of the coleslaw because I was starving and the only veggies were coleslaw or egg potato salad. Mr. Picky was not happy with any of the food choices and ate the pretzels that were out on the table and that was it until I went and got some of his snacks in the car.

Personally, I think from all the massive chemicals used on crops, all the crap in the meat from the factory farming practices (and their large consumption of meat) and the polluted water, air, etc it’s no wonder people acted the way they did. I felt like an alien in that state. Just watching that woman feed her (wet) one year old, the kid had food stains all over her (and I mean bad) and she was wearing a white dress. I wanted to give her a napkin to put on the little girl but I didn’t. I tried to talk to her but it was like she wasn’t there, even when talking about her kids – always a safe topic with strangers. Thank God for the wedding people that flew in from the coasts and the fellow Coloradans.

Many of these people were from my husband’s old job many years ago and they all remembered us as the couple who lived in the yurt. Some of them asked me so many questions about living off the grid in a yurt in the mountains. It was fun to reminisce since we sold it 5 years ago now (for work reasons). One guy that worked with my husband that I never met before told me that we so inspired him and he had pictures up all over of yurts and solar power and did lots of research on it and wanted to live in one and then he had to move for a job to OR and his girlfriend (now wife) was not into living an alternative lifestyle. He really was into talking all about it which was so fun for me because we really loved living like that for 3 years plus all the years we spent beforehand planning it all. One day again we will buy land and build an alternative home and compound. (I will post all about living the off the grid life in a yurt soon).

I mean no disrespect to anyone from NE that may read this. I was only pointing out the vast differences in consciousness and lifestyle that we noticed. I really got a good look at “You are what you eat” firsthand once again and it just reaffirmed to me personally how happy I am living on live, organic foods and how lucky I am to be aware of that fact and have that choice.

Leif kept asking in the car ride home, “Are we in Colorado yet?”. And we would tell him “No, still in Nebraska” and he’d say, “I want to be in Colorado”. Even the 4 year old felt it. All 3 of us were just so happy to return home to our slice of reality which is just oh so nice we are not leaving the state all summer!

What Helps The Environment The Most?

YOUR DIET.

I came across this blog post recently on greenlivingbuilding.com that is something I’ve been thinking a lot about myself since I’ve gone raw. This person said it so well, I thought I would list some of their facts from the post in italics with my comments on this thrown in as well.

Raising food for human consumption creates 18% of greenhouse gas emissions, more than 130 times the total of human generated greenhouse gas emissions. The amount of pollution created just to grow and deliver animal food to our tables is extraordinarily high.

And water used to raise animals for human food is equally high. Here are some of the worst offenders:

• 4500 liters of water for one steak.
• 1000 liters of water for one liter of milk.
• 1170 liters of water for one chicken breast.
• 1440 liters of water for one serving of pork.
• 840 liters of water for one pot of coffee.
• 2500 liters of water for one piece of cheese.

Compare that to 70 liters of water used to deliver one apple.

These stats are so shocking when you read that in black and white. 4,500 liters of water for one steak? That’s not even 1% of the cow! It’s crazy, really. Plus, all of the grain to feed the cows stuck on those cruel, barbaric factory farmed feedlots. It gets expensive so the feedlot owners went the cannibalism route – it gets the cows weight up faster so more money for them. You do know that they feed cows, who are herbivores, rendered dead cows and other animals including cats and dogs, don’t you? Mad cow, anyone? I wonder how much water is wasted on that heinous act. If you eat red meat, at least buy pasture raised (grass-fed) beef from companies you can trust!

Reducing the percentage of animal foods in your diet is one of the most effective ways to help our environment. It’s also one of the best things you can do for your health at the same time. Two benefits in one!

Eating a diet of mainly raw fruits and vegetables, nuts, seeds and living grains is also:

• waste free
• better than driving a hybrid
• healthy
• sustainable
• eco friendly

Since I’ve gone raw, even when I was only 80% raw in January, I realized that I make so much more compost everyday and that I myself hardly throw away anything and only have to recycle a few things. I make very little garbage now. It feels so good to know that whatever I’m eating, if there is any waste it can go feed the squirrels outside or go on the compost pile. My little Bio Bag compost bin and bags we have been using the past several years is way too small for what our needs are now. I need a trash can sized compost bin nowadays!

Another benefit (to me, anyway) is that my child sees me eating all these different veggies, fruits, nuts and sprouts prepared in different ways and is very intrigued. He calls me “the cooking guy” since I’m always whipping up some new recipe and oohing and ahhing over it to him. Even though he is very picky about eating combination foods, his intake of simple fruit and veggies and raw nuts and seeds has gone up so much everyday now. This is huge for me. I can put a pile of spinach leaves in front of him and he will eat it. An entire apple or pear, he eats all of it and bananas, forget it. He can eat 3 or 4 in a day (and no, they are not constipating). Tonight, he tried some raw asparagus we got from the farmer’s market (which was so delicious!). He even drank some of a green juice I made last night which consisted of: collard greens, cucumbers, celery, wheatgrass and an entire lemon and he drank at least 2 ounces of it. That’s so amazing!! He’s really trying out new foods in the plant world and I couldn’t be happier.

And, my husband, a determined omnivore, well his increase in vegan meals and raw vegan foods (he’s so into juicing now) has gone up greatly and the cooking of flesh foods has dropped tremendously. All his choice, I don’t push my food on him but I do ask for him to taste the recipes I make and give me his opinion because my taste buds have definitely changed from detoxing these past 5 months. I have sampled some bites of cooked vegan foods recently when I was cooking for them and I thought, “yuck”. It felt heavy and dense and slow. I know that sounds weird but that’s how it felt and it was some of my favorite cooked foods like couscous and quinoa. I can just imagine what I would think if I ate some chicken or red meat now.

I am so into the high frequency I feel off the living foods. It’s kind of hard to describe but it feels like this total connection to the plants and the earth and to being part of the cycle of life itself. Raw, living foods took the blinders off my eyes and my mind and I feel re-awakened, balanced and more clear again.

And do you know what is the original raw food we mammals get to eat? Breastmilk!

Special Santa Fe

We went on a little vacation to one of our favorite places in the world, Santa Fe, NM. This is a place we still consider moving to and a place that I thought I was originally going to move to when I relocated from NYC. I got “sidetracked” in Colorado and 14 years later, I’m still here.

Whenever we go there, we try to do some new things that we haven’t done before and to also visit with some friends and family that live in northern New Mexico. It is very, very similar in lifestyle and consciousness and attitude (mostly) to where we live now (which I do love where we live). There is just an “extra something special” there with the architecture and art and the energy of the land itself for me. This city has also been there for the past 400 years. I’m drawn to it and recharged by it every time I can spend at least a few days there and we were there a week and it still felt like it was not enough time.

We stayed in a 1 bedroom condo for the week and traveling with a young child, this is the BEST way to travel and have little stress. Since my son is a major picky eater, eating in restaurants is really no fun for us with him so we did take out at night a lot and he got to eat his favorite foods right in the condo and be his loud little self and pretty happy. The wireless for the rooms was down and only accessible in the lobby bldg. so we were internet free for the week. I think I had a harder time with it initially than my software engineer husband did. I tried one night early on to check email in that bldg. with our laptop but it was noisy and annoying and not worth it. We both really enjoyed the relaxing evenings of getting to spend some real quality time together and I think it was great that we couldn’t use the computer in our condo!

This was my very first trip as a raw vegan and I was worried that I would not have much to eat so I prepared different foods before we left and brought it with us which worked out great for me since we had a kitchen. I knew I would go crazy on the guacamole and pico de gallo found everywhere so I made raw corn chips and crackers for that but funny enough, I now prefer to dip into those yummy foods using veggies instead of my chips or crackers. I did eat some green chile (which is cooked but I love it) on my salads and other foods and can now tolerate more heat and spice than ever before since going raw.

I made this new recipe of raw granola I found and my (omnivore) husband loved it and said it was the best granola he’s eaten – and that is saying a lot! I also made raw nori rolls, sun garden burgers with raw ketchup, and a raw bread. I brought my “magic bullet” chopper/blender in case I wanted to make some smoothies. I was pretty well stocked for the week and only needed to get fresh veggies and fruit. I saved a lot of money doing this and didn’t feel deprived at all (I love all of these recipes) and wound up bringing a lot back home, too.

I found the one restaurant in town that served raw entrees and desserts which is inside this cool place called “Body” that is a natural home store, yoga/pilates workout studio that also offers healing services (yes, it was huge). My kind of place! I had a raw pizza and salad to go and it was excellent and now I am on a quest to figure out how to re-make their recipe this week.

So, I managed to stay totally raw for at least 98% of my trip and looking at my husband eating the traditional NM food smothered in cheese didn’t even tempt me – which is very weird for me bec. I love the food there and had the vacation mindset going on. I even lost weight from all the walking and hiking we did. Woo hoo! And, I had lots of energy – even at night. I am loving living raw!!

We took a tour one afternoon of a new community being built that has everything we like – photovoltaic and passive solar design, wind power, reclaimed water for landscaping, geo-thermal, eco-friendly building materials and insulation from top to bottom, beautiful architecture, lots of open space and trails surrounding it, community garden plots, commercial sized greenhouses going in for food sold to the community at a discount first, farmer’s market second, lots of fruit trees planted on the property for the community, parks and playgrounds, only environmentally friendly landscape maintenance used, etc. Basically our dream community. We just need work to support us down there and we are not moving in a bad real estate market for at least a few years. Good thing they will have a few phases being built so we have time to re-consider in the future.

The one new hike we did was at a place called Tent Rocks. It is just south of Santa Fe and a totally awesome place. These other-worldly looking rock formations formed millions of years ago from a volcanic eruption and it’s a soft sand and gravel type of rock pillar with the top part being a harder granite rock which kept it in place all this time. It has very narrow channels to walk through as you ascend to the top which my 4 year old loved doing as well as climbing on all the rocks (although for the other half of hiking he wanted to be in the backpack). It even had a cave that the two of them climbed up into and my son thought it was the coolest thing and wanted to sleep in it. I guess spelunking will be something we can do with him when he is older. He even pointed out a few formations that he thought were spaceships so even a 4 year old thought it looked alien like.

We took a train ride one day on the Santa Fe Southern Railway in an old 1920’s passenger car out to a train depot in a town called Lamy, had lunch and then rode the train back to the Santa Fe station. My son loved it since he loves trains so much. There was an outside platform to stand on, too which was fun.

There is so much more but this is a little recap of some of the fun and interesting things we did. I’m so glad that even though I don’t get to live there right now, we are only a (several hours long) car ride away from such a special place.

Growing Challenge and 100 Foot Diet Challenge Update

As I am supposed to do, I am doing a weekly post of what’s going on out my back door.

As for the growing challenge, my husband rototilled up the garden beds and added soil amendments including homemade beautiful compost from our 2 compost piles.  He formed new beds and put the drip line back in and then made pathways with the brick we took out of our front walkway last fall when we made a concrete patio and new flowerbeds instead.  The brick looks good in there and I’m glad we found a way to re-purpose it.

I cleared out all our planters out back and re-arranged stuff so that I made room for 3 more planters around my deck for more food and herb growing.  We also planted lots of seeds in the garden (and have tons of seedlings growing in the house) and I planted all of our garlic and onion starts in the front of our jerusalem artichoke (sunchoke) trough.

Last year we built a trough by our back fence to make a fast growing privacy screen.  It worked but not until Sept./Oct. of last fall did we get the full coverage we wanted.  Hopefully this year since they have been in there over the winter they will grow faster to give us some summertime privacy from our neighbors.  I learned this trick from working on a CSA one summer back in 1997 where they used it as a wind shield to protect the plants from the wide open spaces next to them.  I wasn’t sure it would work for what I wanted but it did.  An experiment gone well : )

We also decided on another area in the backyard where we can put in a long, narrow bed to grow our giant sunflowers and some corn and watermelon.  The sunflowers looked so cool in our garden last summer but we don’t have room for them in there this year with all of our different greens taking up a couple of beds.  They also caused mass rioting in our garden last fall between the birds and squirrels that we had to cut down most of them to get any seeds for us and we left a few up for them to duke it out over and eat.   I’ve never seen squirrels and birds argue like that before, it was pretty funny to watch.

Since I was planting in the front of my jerusalem artichoke trough, those suckers spread like crazy so I harvested any tubers that grew over to the front and got quite a bit to eat now (it’s a 30 ft. trough).  They can be eaten raw or cooked and are like a cross between jicama, water chestnuts and a potato so I peeled and “spiralized” some into spagetti strands and mixed it with zucchini “spagetti” and raw marinara sauce and ate it like that for my raw dinner and Michael cut some up in rounds and added it to a salad (like water chestnuts).  I think he is going to try to bake some this week.  I really enjoyed the taste and I also ate some in my salad, too this week.  I love edible landscaping!

We also grew both alfalfa and mung bean sprouts again.  Our favorites.  We are sprouting some peas and more mung right now to eat.  We love sprouts and they are sooo good for you and super cheap and easy to make.

We are still in the process of hardening off our new berry and grape plants so they are not in the ground yet.  We have 2 large whiskey barrels that used to be in the front of our house that we have moved to the backyard and removed the false bottom inside.  I think we will wind up using them for either the berries or the grapes.  They may need to be moved  a few times to avoid the squirrels from eating all of the fruit so we will experiment this summer to find the best growing spots for those plants.

I’m so happy it’s spring!

So Many Challenges, So Little Time

Since my newly re-designed blog is now up and running, I signed up to participate in a few challenges I’ve been following. Two are garden related growing challenges which I love and try to do anyway. I joined so I can write about it every week and hopefully spread some awareness to others who may not garden or know anything about eating locally or organic, etc.

One challenge is called the “Growing Challenge” and you are to grow at least one additional new veggie or fruit this year that you didn’t last year and to write about gardening each week. We actually just bought 2 different kinds of grape vines to grow as well as a raspberry bush and a boysenberry bush.

I am also growing several different herbs and for my 4 year old, Leif, we are growing little yellow pear tomatoes in a planter for him. I got him a beautiful book last year called ‘Little Yellow Pear Tomatoes” by Demian Elaine Yumei. It has beautiful illustrations and is a story of why this little girl loves her little yellow pear tomatoes and what’s really in them so he was very excited to grow these. He also has a book called “Planting a Rainbow” by Lois Ehlert that he really likes and wants to grow blue cornflowers that he likes from the book this year, too. It’s very cute, I love to watch little kids interact with the plants. You should see him go crazy in the strawberry patch. He can’t pull them off fast enough to eat them right there.

The other challenge I signed up for is the “Victory Garden 100 Foot Diet Challenge”. The rules are: Beginning as soon as you can, prepare a meal at least once a week with only homegrown vegetables, fruit, herbs, eggs, dairy products or meat, using as few store bought ingredients as possible.

I’ve already been kind of doing this by growing and eating different types of sprouts in my kitchen for the past few months. We used to grow and eat sprouts all the time then stopped around when Leif was born. Since I’ve gone raw, this challenge is even more important to me because eating locally as much as possible is something I believe in so this year, we eliminated growing certain veggies we eat cooked and are growing more greens and veggies that are more prolific and that I like eating raw (or heated to less than 118 degrees in recipes). And we added much more fruit.

I love edible landscaping. Last year we put in a trough in front of our fence filled with jerusalem artichokes which grow very tall to create a screen from our neighbors for more privacy in the summer. I may tweak that this year to have year round privacy. We are discussing that one.

And my final challenge is a “Buy Nothing Challenge” I joined in to buy nothing in the month of April. No non-essentials. I generally learned to live like this since my husband basically lost his software career after 9/11 and we had to live on savings while living in our yurt in the mountains and I was livin’ on the compact for a full year.

Since I worked for myself out of my home, I realized the only times I went to town was to shop or go out socially. All required money for that so that was over. I learned how to become very creative with doing fun, free things (which I found out there are a lot of listings for this) as well as go to thrift stores, use freecycle, closeout stores, bulk buying at Costco or bulk bins at the health food store, etc.

Things have been fine and dandy for sev’l years now financially for us (and my husband’s career is better than ever) but I learned a lot about myself and my spending habits and there was a lot of non-essential spending going on so all in all it was a good lesson. I am doing the challenge again for one month just to bring that level of awareness about money back into my life again even though I’m pretty well trained at this point. Just maybe slacking a little.

So, if your up for it, why don’t you join in on one of these (or many other) challenges that are out there in the blogosphere? It’s fun and you learn new things about yourself.

My New, Redesigned Blog

Welcome to my updated blog! I’m very excited to have this so that I can take my blogging further. It’s been about 8 months now that I’ve been a blogger and I really enjoy it and am slowly learning more about the techie stuff – aka stuff I don’t like and never wanted to learn about. Thankfully, my dear, sweet husband had agreed to redesign and host my blog for me and I can also ask him the techie questions that come up for me (a lot) as I go along.

So, it’s got a very nature-ish vibe to it but being that I named the blog after the nature devas, and I love being enveloped by the plant world (literally, my favorite place to be is in a thick, lush jungle or rainforest with plants and trees surrounding me), “we” spliced and diced to create this look. I say we because I had a vision of what I wanted and Michael made it for me. So, big thanks goes out to my husband, Michael, the software genius that he is.

I hope you will stick around and visit my blog often because I’ve got many ideas brewing!

Still Going Strong On Raw Foods

I realize I have not posted in a while but I have been spending any free time I have in researching articles, blogs and numerous recipes on raw, living foods.  It is what I am calling my “research project” and I have learned a great deal on this subject.  I’ve also made some pretty tasty recipes, too.

And yes, I did a 30 day raw challenge for myself and have surpassed it with no cheating.  I am a day shy of 5 weeks raw now and really, I feel great.  I’ve lost 7 pounds and have eaten great food, juices, smoothies, cracker / flat breads and chocolate treats.   I’ve also been going to physical therapy (which just ended) and so I have not worked out like a dog like I normally have to do to lose 7 pounds in one month on “normal” foods. I’ve just gone on walks when my son wants to ride his bike and do the strengthening exercises the therapist gave me to do at home.  I think the raw life is working for me! Finally!  Raw foods keep your body more alkaline which helps when you have pain caused by inflammation.

I finally have found out the root cause of my hip / back pain and knee pain and got a shot in the knee in January (leg above knee, really) to stop the inflammation cycle and may need to do that in my hip, too.  That has been awesome to stop the pain in the scar tissue area of my knee (actually caused by my IT band in my thigh – I had no idea about that) but my hip has scar tissue in it -most likely from my pregnancy or really more from my hard labor when the pain really started.  The phys. therapist even pinpointed the exact spot of damage, gave me specific exercises to do to strengthen the weaker muscles surrounding the scar tissue and I’ve had sev’l sessions of ultrasound (which helps break up scar tissue) on the spot, too.  All of it helped and I totally love physical therapy!

I will post soon on interesting facts I’ve learned from all of my research but the number one thing I’ve learned is that we humans need to eat green leafy veggies everyday and in a larger quantity than just a salad and be sure to keep it raw.  Wilted is ok (just massage cut up greens like kale with olive oil, lemon juice & salt and let sit for a few hours), but not cooked.  I’ve been adding greens to my smoothies or just juicing them (lots of wheatgrass, too I think I’m addicted to wheatgrass, it perks me up so much).  And eating tons of baby spinach.  Love that stuff. And sprouts.  We’ve been sprouting diff. seeds in the kitchen to eat them and you get so much nutrition (and quantity!) from such a small amt. of seeds and it’s so unbelievably cheap!

Even my non-raw husband is addicted to lots of raw greens now, too.  He will make a bunch of fresh green juice of whatever we have on hand and some fruits either also juiced or puts it all in the vita mix blender with ice and makes a smoothie and has that for lunch.  It’s surprisingly filling but still light.  I think I’ve rubbed off on him, I’d say he eats about 60% raw foods now everyday.  Some dishes I make to share he doesn’t really like but last night, I made a dish we both LOVED.  It was awesome – Spinach Mushroom “pasta” with “cream” sauce.  So filling and so delicious.

Even my son, Mr. Picky, is fascinated by what I am doing in the kitchen and he asks lots of questions about it and will eat lots more cut up greens or veggies and fruits but still won’t try any combo dishes.  I do make him taste the smoothies.  How can you not like a fruit smoothie? He takes a few sips after I beg him and then that’s it.  At least it’s progress.  I made my first batch of raw cookies last night that are still dehydrating.  I hope he likes them.

Michael has also just built some new shelves for us in the kitchen for desperately needed storage space and this weekend is building a narrow yet tall storage closet next to the shelves, too (I get to paint the closet and shelf brackets this weekend). This has made such a huge difference for me in preparing my dishes – I can keep my new little appliances I use everyday on a shelf and free up the island.  I love it and once the closet is done, I will reorganize everything to make it even easier and faster for me to get my stuff and prepare food for everyone.  We figured, since we’re not moving for a few years now, we might as well make our life easier.

My Baby Is 4!

Well, he actually turned 4 on the 24th of February, aka Oscars Sunday. We started off the birthday extravaganza with a party at school on the 21st. He goes to a Waldorf preschool and the teacher does a special birthday celebration for each child where they eat little star bday cakes and then have a ceremony and the birthday child dresses up in a cape, a crown and holds a star wand. She lights candles for how old they are and reads the story of how they chose to be born into their chosen family (and the stork drops them off at our house). Leif was way more into the cape and the wand than he was in listening to the story but it was sweet. She made him a wool felt doll and he calls it the “Prince Leif” doll.

We had a fun party for him and all of his friends on Saturday the 23rd and when I asked him if he liked his party and had fun he said, “yes I did!”.

It was a “transportation” themed party but with a major focus on trains since he’s still obsessed with them and now fire trucks and helicopters, too. When we all sang happy birthday and everyone said his name he pointed to himself and said, “that’s me!” so I feel like he really got the meaning of a birthday party and in feeling special and loved by everyone and in honoring yourself for a day. I love birthday celebrations so I’m really happy that he “got it” this year. Here are some pix from the party with some of his friends:

When we got home from the party and opened all of his gifts, it was still sunny out so we gave him one of our presents, a new bike. He was sooo stoked on this bike, I tell ya! He just loves riding it.

The next morning, his actual birthday, he crawls over to me in bed and kisses my cheek and says, “I love you so much”. Aww. That just melted my heart. I feel like that was his way of thanking me for the party. He was just so happy the whole weekend with the party and then on his actual bday on Sunday we went to the zoo.

The weather was nice the whole weekend and the zoo was crazy! It was so packed we had to park about a half mile away. We discovered an enormous castle like playground that he wanted to play in and I kept saying, let’s play here instead of the zoo and the birthday boy said let’s play here and go to the zoo, too! He won out, of course since it was his day and he loves the zoo but it was really crowded and I will never go on a nice weekend again. Only weekdays. Or maybe never at all. I actually hate zoos. I think it’s so cruel to the animals to be in such small areas with tons of humans gawking at them all day. They seem depressed to me and some seem to have gone insane, too. I find it heartbreaking to watch. I have a really hard time being at the zoo and reading the energy of the animals. Sorry, I digress.

I can’t believe what a little person he’s turned into in such a short amount of time. His inquisitiveness, his amazing memory for everything! His wanting to always engage in conversation and watching his mind process words and formulate the next sentence when we are having a conversation is pretty interesting for me to watch. He’s got a funny sense of humor and really enjoys a good laugh. He’s also very compassionate to his fellow human being and (usually) all animals, too. He still is very cuddly and loves to be held or touched, even just holding hands. I can’t wait to see him blossom and grow more as this year unfolds.

I think this is a fun age, they are like mini people but still with cherubic faces and extreme innocence and are just so adorable but can really interact with you so much now. It’s definitely been a rewarding 4 years with my little guy who I love more than anything!