Getting Back On Track With This Blog

I started this blog almost 3 years ago with the goal to write about living a more natural life style.  For me this means cooking my own food, growing my own food, eating local and with the seasons, eating healthy and naturally, being creative and not buying everything at the store, or even buying things that are thrifted and "upcycling"them.  Not only am I not really following through with these things on this blog, but I have let go of actually practicing a lot of this in my life (which is maybe why I am finding it so hard to write about it).

I am moving towards a more vegan diet.  As I have written, I have the BRCA2 gene mutation, which places me at a much greater risk for breast and ovarian cancer as well as pancreatic cancer and melanoma.  I still have to decide if I am going to have surgery to reduce my risk, or if I am just going to try to do things a little more naturally.  I have some doctors appointments coming up and have to schedule a couple more.  I am hoping that after these appointments, I will be able to make a better decision on which direction to go.  If I decide to have surgery, I will also continue with a mostly vegan diet and living a lifestyle that has ways of dealing with stress.

The research that I have done, has shown that eating a plant based diet, is something that can greatly reduce your chances of getting cancer.  I figure, even if I have surgery, it can't hurt to take care of my body and eat less meat and more fruits and veggies and whole grains.  I am also planning on really going gluten free and dairy free since I have sensitivities to these foods, or at least I think I do.  I also need to be better at gluten and dairy free meals and snacks for my older son.  He too has sensitivities that seem to manifest as symptoms of Autism.  Since we have greatly reduced his gluten and dairy intake he has greatly improved.  I really believe that diet plays a huge role in how our body reacts, not just physically but mentally as well.

We will be having a garden this year, and I hope that we do better and that we can get a lot of things from our own garden.  I really need to spend some time and research how best to eat locally and seasonally as well as doing it on a budget.  I really want to start making my own foods instead of going out to eat or buying more processed foods.

I also keep thinking about crafting for charity.  I will be creating things for my local twins group to sell at their annual convention.  It will be nice to donate to something that I can directly benefit from and have benefitted from in the past.  As much as this is great, I really want to do something more.  One of these days I will get the courage to talk to my selectman friend about collecting things at the farmers market.  I would love to be more active in my community and maybe this is one way to start.  I have grand thoughts, but am not sure if they are too grand and need to be tailored down.  I will keep thinking and maybe I'll get the nerve to talk to him about it.

Amy