Being Creative

I have been trying to make a point to be creative often, almost every day if not every day.  With the weather getting nicer, I am spending more time outside with the kids.  I have been able to bring some projects outside with me, which has allowed me to create as well as allow my kids to be outside which they love.

Recently, I have been making dolls, or at least attempting to make dolls.  I remember loving dolls as a child, especially the Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls that my grandmother made for us.  I remember having life-size Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls as well as small ones.  I was lucky enough to have a Raggedy Ann doll for my daughter and a Raggedy Andy doll for each of my sons, made by my grandmother.  I actually have to make a Raggedy Andy outfit for my twin son's Raggedy Andy.  I am hoping to create some dolls for charity, as well as for fun.

 My attempt at a Waldorf doll

Baby Bows Doll in the outfits that my twins came home from the hospital in. I still need to make one for my oldest!

A sleepytime doll that I made for my niece for her Christening

The more I create, the more I realize that I love doing it.  I know that I need to make time to have this as part of my life.  I am hoping to make being creative a major part of my life, and not just something that I do when I find the time. I know that I need to start spending time actually getting good at a craft before I move on to something else. There are many times that I think that I have ADD, seriously, and the creative arena is o different. I flit from one project to another, never committing to fully learning and fully succeeding at the one I am working on. I want to stop being average at the things I create and start being proficient at it.

 I also want to start getting more creative in my cooking.  The farmer's market in town is starting in a couple of weeks and I hope to start buying more local foods and start being more creative with it.  Between my BRCA2 gene mutation (I think I have decided against surgery, at least for now) and my son recently being diagnosed with PDD NOS, I really need to watch what we are eating.  My goal is again to eat more local and to eat way more fruits and veggies (little to no animal protein for me due to the BRCA2 mutation), and decrease, maybe even totally eliminate gluten and dairy (we again have greatly reduced it, but not totally eliminated it, both my oldest and I are sensitive to it).  Part of my problem with cooking lately, is that I am bored and not feeling very creative with my cooking.  I am hoping to get inspired by going to local farmer's markets and even just walking around.  I am hoping to find some good cookbooks and some good online sites that can help to inspire me.

I am hoping to find a job at the end of the summer that will be able to take into account my love of creating.  I am under no illusion that there may not be anything out there like that, but I would love to try to find something.  I still have a few more years before I go back to work full time.  I hope by then, I can figure out how I can do work that I love instead of just working for a paycheck.  I do like being a social worker, but I don't love it.  My husband thinks that it is just because of fear of doing 1:1 counseling, but that is not it.  I don't know that I want to do 1:1 counseling! I'm not really sure I know what I want to do, but I really want to wake up and want to go to work.  Hopefully I can figure out a way for that to happen.

Amy

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

End Of The Week

It's the end of the week!  My husband is on vacation next week and I can't wait.  I am hoping that we can take some day trips and just plain hang around and relax and have fun!

This week, I've written about a couple of goals that I have.Thanks to a couple of comments, I am more motivated to follow through.  First of all, my and my family's health is something that is really important to me.  It's always difficult to make changes, but I think in our case, slow and steady wins the race.  We have started our plants from seed tis year and so far so good, they are growing.  I have started our cold weather veggies in the garden, but we still have more to plant.  I am hopeful, that this year, we will be eating veggie from the garden, which will help with being healthier.

My other goal is creating to help others.  One thing I am going to do, thanks to a comment, is push myself more to create things for my twins group.  I have wanted to be a part of this, but I wasn't sure what to make.  I just sent an e-mail to find out some more information so that I can start making things that will help a group that I belong to that has been helpful to me.  I am also thinking that if a specific selectman gets re-elected, I may approach him about the farmer's market idea.  I'm not sure how much I want to commit, but it's definitely something to think about how to make that idea happen.  I have a bunch of ideas, I just need to get things together and clarify how, what, when, and where.  It may be a project that I have to work on and maybe start next year, but at least it is a goal.  I can get my goal of being creative and helping others taken care of all together.  I just have to see if the farmer's market is some where I can start this idea.  I'm sure that there will be more thoughts about it here, so that I can get some feedback and ideas on my thoughts and plans.

Amy

Diet

As many of you know,  I am trying really hard to eat healthy.  I am trying to eat healthy on a budget, as locally as possible, and as natural as possible.  Unfortunately, this has been a pretty major struggle for me.  I have had a pretty horrible weekend, but I am back on the bandwagon and am planning on eating healthy, the way I want to.  I am planning on eating curried quinoa with veggies for dinner tonight.  I may have to put this in some egg for the kids to make it so they can eat it independently.  I really need to sit down and plan out my meals so that I can maybe stop at the grocery store on the way home from the lab today.

I really want to check out farmer's markets more in the western part of the state.  I feel like the farmer's markets in my area aren't real farmer's markets.  It seems like we are too much in suburbia for it to be what I am looking for.  Unfortunately, going to the western part of the state is not going to be easy for us.  I just want to see what they may be like and it may be a nice way to spend the day!

Amy