Life

I am working really hard to get back to where I want to be with regards to my beliefs!  My beliefs such as: making gifts instead of just going to a department store and buying them, eating healthy home cooked meals, being active, using alternative means to having a healthy life, being as green and eco-friendly/conscious as I can.

I am planning on sewing a couple of things for my sister's baby shower and I finally planned her blanket.  I was going to make an actual quilt, but then I thought about time and whether or not it would actually be used.  I decided to make a ribbon quilt.  It will be an actual quilt, but small and with ribbons that my newest niece will hopefully enjoy playing with.  I want it to be used and loved, not just folded away some where.  I am also planning on making a couple of burp cloths to match the quilt.  I did buy the diaper bag that was on my sister's registry as well as some little things to go along with it, but I absolutely for certain wanted to make something for my newest niece.  I spent Friday night drafting the ribbon quilt for my niece.  I am hoping that it will look great.  I hope that it won't be too over done.  My sister decided to go with the monkey theme, so I have monkey and jungle material with coordinating fabrics to go along with it.  I am really excited to start working on it.  I also decided to do a couple of traditional quilt blocks called the monkey wrench.  I hope it some out the way I planned it!  Then I will be off to draft my kids' quilts!  I am hoping to use non-traditional patterns for theirs and make the boys coordinating and Eva Rose's coordinating too, but add something girly to it also.  I am planning on having them in the same room for quite some time, so I might as well coordinate all quilts with the space theme that we had decided on for the boys!

I am trying to really get back to eating healthy.  I have started to have at least 1 green smoothie a day.  I would love to move up to have more and decreasing some of the solid foods that I eat.  How healthy would it be to have more fruits and veggies in your diet and be able to drink them and get all the nutrients that you need.  I still ahve a long way to go to fully be where I want to be, but again this whole life style is a balance.  I don't have to be all or nothing.  I can make small changes and hope that as I increase the amount of small changes, it will add up to big overall changes!  As long as I keep moving in the right direction, than I am happy with that.  I have started to decrease the amount of sugar that I give the kids and me and my husband.  I am trying to get the adults away from as much meat as we have been eating, but not really the kids.  I was hoping to do more with a raw foods diet for the summer months, but I don't seem to be there yet.  I also keep trying to get way from gluten and gluten containing foods as well as dairy!

Tom and I hae been trying to walk on average every other day to every day depending on the weather and our schedule.  We have been walking 4 miles and I am finally seeming not to have aches and pains like I did when we first started 2 weeks ago.  I really want to start doing yoga!  I have all these thoughts, but I just don't seem to find the time to actually do it!  I am hoping the yoga  will help me physically and also mentally, dealing with stress in my life.

As for using alternative means to a healthy life, I want to learn more about herbs and aromatherapy and how to incorporate that into my life.  I would love to learn enough to start a career with  this.  I also consider nutrition as an alternative means of living a healthy life.  By nutrition, I don't mean following the latest fad, I mean eating a healthy diet that may actually even go against what mainstream society tells you to eat.  I also want to include yoga and other things like qi gong in my practice.  I would love to add some of these things to anactual career, but I think my husband would kill me if I changed my career from social work to something else!  I think it's because I had just gotten my MSW/LCSW right before I had children.  Maybe some day, I'll actually get supervision and get enough hours to get my LICSW and then I can practice social work and do therapy how I want to, not just traditional psychotherapy!

I just want to continue to recycle and reduce my contribution to any negative envornmental impact.  I would love to re-use instead of always using new items.  Someday, I'll get to a thrift store and start to use/re-use otehr peoples things especailly in new and creative ways instead of always buying new, even material.

God this was a long post!  If anyone is reading this, this was another post to help remind me of my goals, not to preach.  Any thoughts are always welcome!

Amy