Sugar Detox

So, here it is, day 4 of my 21 day sugar detox and I have had some huge ups and some huge downs. Day 1 was easy and I thought, I can do this no problem. Well, then came day 2, and that did not go as well. I was angry, and had a headache as well as no patience. All I wanted was some starchy carbs and sugar. I persisted and didn't give in. I did try to make some approved biscuits, and yes it did help but they were not really what I wanted. Day 3 came and went but I did give in and I had a bagel and a Hershey kiss. Not happy that I gave in, but I did get right back on track and ate what I was supposed to for the rest of the day. On to today, day 4, and I've done really well. I've lost a little weight, probably 3-4 pounds since I first started and maybe 10 pounds from my highest weight. I still need to lose a good amount of weight, but I want to do it the right way and maintain what I lose. I want to continue to make lifestyle changes and not just changes to lose weight. Another positive to this diet change and maybe even weight loss is my nightly breathing. My husband has mentioned, especially when I was pregnant, that my snoring was awful and I would have issues with sleep apnea. Now I am overweight but not crazy overweight. I think it's more the foods I'm eating or should I saw not eating that is making the difference. He said that things have been much better. I am heading out tonight to buy a bought from deliciously organic. I think I am going to plan on staying mostly grain-free. I have heard from a lot of people that being grain free is very beneficial. I am seeing a lot of benefits, just in the last few days, which makes me want to continue. I also want to live a healthy lifestyle with clean eating, less processed foods, and local foods (preferably from my backyard). I still want to include creativity in my life, including crafts, gardening, as well as cooking. I'll be trying out a new recipe for bread with coconut flour as well as almond flour. Trying new recipes is always fun and creative. Like I said in my last post, with spring coming, I want to clean out stuff and get more organized. I am hoping that this diet change is going to help with my energy and clear headedness, which will help me with getting organized. I am hopeful, that with an organized life, I will have more time to be creative and also add some exercise into my life. Wish me luck on continuing my new way of life! Amy Sprouts and microgreens Latest mandala Curry turkey meatballs from paleomg.com

Diets, Nutrition, and Gardeing

For a while now, I have been thinking and rethinking my passions, thinking about this blog and why I started it. I honestly am passionate about living a handmade and natural life, but also a balanced life. If I remember correctly, I started this blog about 5 1/2 years ago when the kids were just babies and we started going to farmer's markets with them. I thought back then, at probably 36 years old, that I was going through a midlife crisis. I think I have slowly been going through one, because now at almost 42, I am still questioning my life and what I want out of it, and how to go about getting it. I know I do want to change the focus of my social work career. I would love to do something with food and food related issues. I, almost constantly think about food, diet, and nutrition and how it relates in my life as well as others lives. I think about what is the best diet to follow for me and my family. As much as I hate to admit it, I sometimes even think about what fad diet, low calorie diet I can eat to just lose weight. I then come back and remind myself, I don't need a crazy fad diet, I need a lifestyle change. With that thought that I need a lifestyle change, I think more about what type of foods I should be eating and how best to afford those foods. When I think about how best to afford them and how best to be able to prepare them, I think about how difficult it must be for some people to be able to afford to actually purchase healthy foods as well as have the time to prepare them. I am lucky enough that I have the time to plan, buy, and cook healthy foods. I also have the money to buy decent quality food, but I wish I could afford to buy better quality foods. I also have space and time to have an actual backyard garden. When I think about what type of lifestyle diet change, I have thought about becoming vegan, going completely gluten free, dairy free, sugar free, eating a Palo diet, eating a clean food diet, and I'm sure there are many other diets that I have looked at. As I think about it, I think the best think to do is to eat a clean diet. I am almost sure that the lifestyle diet I plan to follow for myself is to eat clean. I don't think that meat is evil, but I do think that there is easily too much meat in most people's every day diet. I don't think that legumes are evil like some proponents of the Palo diet promote. I do think that gluten, some dairy and most sugar are not a good thing for most people. I think that t eh best thing people can do it to eat the least processed natural foods that one can find. One of the best things I have heard, is to eat foods that your grandparents would know or eat only foods that you are able to pronounce. I want to continue to work on making my garden the best it can be. I want to be able to walk out into my back yard and pick my produce. I would love to be able to walk into my backyard and get eggs from my own backyard chickens. I want to be able to have my children pick berries from pants in our backyard instead of having to but berries packed in plastic bins from the grocery store. I want to be able to go to my herb garden and flavor my food. I want to go to my flower garden and pick flowers for my house. I want to eat foods that are not processed at all prior to me cooking them. My ultimate goal is to eat mostly green veggies, limit my intake of starchy carbs, get rid of gluten, eat good healthy dairy, limit my meat intake so that I can afford to by good quality grass fed meat. I think that legumes are a good thing for our bodies, at least for me. I want to also look at eating foods in it's natural state, meaning eating some raw foods, but I don't think that a raw diet is the only way to eat, but it is important to have raw foods in our diet. I want to learn about the different types of diets out there so that I can make good choices, so that maybe I can educate others on how to be healthy. As I have thought about this, I have also thought about how to reach people who have limited access to good healthy food. I have thought about people who have limited access to education about healthy foods. I have thought how people don't have the time or the knowledge how to create tasty healthy food. I want to reach these people, especially kids and help them with how to do this. To do this, I need to make changes in my own life. I need to walk the walk, not just talk the talk. I want to find a way to use my social work degree to reach these people. I want to try to make change. I want to work directly 1:1 with people, but I also want to make more systemic changes. I don't know that I can do this on my own, but I know I can do it with support from other like minded people. I want to work with other like minded people, but I'm not sure where to turn. My first goal is to start eating clean foods 99% of the time. I don't want to be a crazy obsessive person who can't allow myself or my family a treat once in a while. I want to start my garden, even though it is still winter here in MA and we still have feet of snow in our yards. I am going to start plants in my basement under grow lights. I am not going to buy breads and sugars because my family and I can't seem to stop eating it when it's around. I am going to buy the healthy foods and start looking at things in a more positive light, not in a way that is negative or punitive. I am going to look at the different foods I can have and how I can really make them enjoyable. I need to take time and really enjoy my food, not just stuff food down my throat to take care of the hunger in my stomach. I am going to learn to listen to my body and eat what it truly needs, not the junk that I think it is telling me it needs. Today was a good start, but a not so good middle, and an ok ending. I have a green smoothie for breakfast, but then went to a family party and ate junk. I never sat down with a plate of food and took time to enjoy what I was eating. I stood up and picked at different foods the whole time I was there. I then went home and didn't give in to the crappy cravings that I was having. I didn't continue to eating junk and crap and say I'll start tomorrow, which never come. I am restarting my healthy eating now, not tomorrow, not Monday after the weekend is over. Happy eating and living the handmade and natural life, Amy Fratto, LICSW

Angelina Jolie's Decision

I can't remember if I wrote about this in the past, but I am positive for the BRCA2 gene mutation.  I found out about 1 1/2 years ago after my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer and found out that she had the gene.  Thankfully, she is doing well after her treatment.

When I found out she had the gene and decided to get tested, I thought about my options if I was positive.  Before I got my results, I decided that I would not get prophylactic surgery.  After I got my results and since, my decision has wavered a bit, especially when stories like Angelina Jolie's come out.

Over the last couple of days, I have been rethinking my decision not to have surgery.  I thought about the fact that I have such little kids.  I thought about the pain and suffering that my grandmother went through.  I thought about how my great grandmother, my grandmother, my grandmother's twin sister, and my mother got breast cancer.

I also thought about what surgery would mean for my body, my mind, my identity.  I thought about (and still think about) how going immediately into menopause would affect my body.  I thought about how my identity would change knowing that I would have parts of my body removed (as silly as it sounds).  I thought about how much piece of mind I would really have even if I had surgery.  Would I have less anxiety or would I still worry that I would get cancer even after having body parts removed.

I honestly feel like this is such a personal decision.  What is right for me isn't necessarily right for everyone.  What is right for Angelina Jolie isn't necessarily right for me.  I think that all options should be looked at and weighed out.  For me not having surgery gives me the option of changing my mind later after having time to think about it.  If I have surgery, I can't change my mind!

Right now, my choice is to eat right (more on the pH diet), exercise, work on the mind body connection, work on my stress level and how I deal with it.  I think doing this will not only keep me healthy and hopefully decrease my risk for cancer overall, but will also get me healthy to have surgery if I chose to do so later in life.

I am going to be forty this summer.  Things may change as I get older since my family seems to get cancer later in life.  I may change my mind about having my ovaries removed after I go through menopause.  I may change my mind if I find a lump.  Right now, I can't have surgery without having cancer.

My life is telling me that I need to look at the different things I believe in.  I keep thinking that I need to make changes in my professional career so that it goes along more with my beliefs.  I need to make sure that I look into more education that will help me have a career doing things I believe in and love.  Loving what I do and believing in what I do will help me with my lifestyle changes also.

Amy

The Binge Monster

I just read "How to break up with your binge monster" over at http://thedailydietribe.com and  so much rang true with me.  Just last night, as my previous post states, I totally had a binge moment.  I had eaten/drank a raw green smoothie for breakfast, but that was it until 3:30 pm when my husband got cookies.  Then I went to work and has a personal pizza, then came home and had some chicken and salad (the only good semi healthy part of my binge), then I went on to eat 3 english muffins with butter and jelly.  So not good.  I just craved food and gave into to everything that I wanted.  Today was a little better, but on my way to work, I totally screwed up.  I, again, started my day with a raw green smoothie,  then we had errands to run.  I hate cookies on the way, but only 3 (as if that is ok).  I did eat a salad for lunch which was a decent decision, but then on my way to work I bought 2, yes 2, muffins, one cranberry walnut that I ate on the way and a chocolate dream with chocolate frosting (which I only ate half and threw the other half right away).  The muffins were not a good decision.  Bad on all fronts for me.  There is way too much sugar, wheat, dairy, and just generally unhealthy ingredients.  Sometimes, I just can't say no.

I think I need to have a talk with my monster.  I think literally a talk.  I want to say out loud, that I will no longer eat things that hurt me.  I want to tell my monster to leave me alone and that even though he thinks he is giving me what I need, all he is doing is causing me pain.  Like Iris over at http://thedailydietribe.com mentioned, this is going to be an ongoing battle (ok the battle part is from me), but as time goes on, I will see my monster slowly but surely backing off and not coming around as much, hopefully some day never to return.

When I go home tonight, I am sure I will snack, but I want to make sure that I snack on something healthy.  I will be snacking on carrot sticks and hummus, one of my new favorite snacks.  I will be looking to eliminate wheat, gluten, and dairy from my diet as well as the other foods that are at least 3 on my blood test.  I am thinking, not only will I be healthier, but I will hopefully lose weight and have more energy.  The other thing that I need to do for my health is increase my exercise.  Hopefully the nice weather will be here before I know it and I can go for walk with the kids.  At least if the snow melts, I can get out with the stroller and walk, since right now there is no room on the sidewalks for a double wide stroller and there is little to no way I can fit in time to exercise with the kids around.  Maybe I just need to get out of bed earlier.

I think the other thing that will help with my diet is to keep busy.  I have many projects to work on and could be reading mroe blogs!  If I keep my mind and my hands busy, maybe then I won't snack or at least be tempted to snack on things that are unhealthy for me to be eating.  Plus, I love to read blogs, I love to work on projects and I have a ton of books that I can read!

Amy, who promises not to keep ruminating on my diet and diet failures!

Does This Mean Anything?

Is this a coincidence or is it real?  For the last week, that is except for today and yesterday, I have been having raw green smoothies for breakfast.  I am used to eating some sort of carb for breakfast, but I had been trying to starrt my day off right so that maybe I would make better choices for the rest of the day.  Prior to making this change in my diet, I had been having pretty rough sinus type headaches.  Once I started having the raw green smoothies, I noticed I was no longer waking up with a headache.  I was getting over a cold, so I was not sure if my diet change had anything to do with not having anymoer headaches or if I was finally over my cold.  I haven't had a headache since, that is until today.  I have had a slight headache off and on all day.  It's not the piercing headache that I was having before, but none the less an anoying headache.  The funny thing is, yesterday and today I did not have my raw green smoothie for breakfast.  I did have 2 glasses last night before bed and then a 1/2 glass after my pancakes this morning.  Yesterday I had french toast.  I find it interesting that now that I started my day off with starchy carbs, my headache is back.  It's probably just a coincidence, but just in case,  I am back to my raw green smoothie for breakfast tomorrow and nothing else.  No more carbs in the morning.  Ok, no more gluten or wheat or any of the other grains that i shouldn't be eating, in the morning.  Actually no more of the grans that I shouldn't be eating ever.  I think the headache today made me realize that I really need to do something with my diet, never mind that I have lost about 6 pounds without dieting, just making lifestyle changes!

I am still researching and enjoying reading others blogs.  I love how many people out there are dealing with food issues and that they are sharing their struggles and what has helped them.  After seeing how much of a role dairy played in my older son's breathing difficulty, I am more aware of how food affects people.  I almost pushed for my son to have surgery, tonsillectomy and maybe even an adenoidectomy, and all I had to do was eliminate milk from his diet to notice a very noticable improvement to his breathing.  The best part is, others have noticed it too, so I know that it is not just me wanting to believe that there has been a change!  I am also wondering if citrus may be another trigger for my kids since they have recently been eating a ton of oranges and are again having diaper rashes.  I know we need to have them offically tested for allergies, but my anecdoctal information says that they are having issues with certain foods.  Now, I just need to maintain our dairy free diet and add a gluten free, citrus free, probably sugar free diet to what we eat.  I am really interested to see what role more diet changes play in our lives!  If anyone has good blogs regarding healthy eating, please pass them on. 

I have a little more information on my mom's cancer diagnosis.  At this time, she has stage 1 grade 2 breast cancer.  This means that the tumor was small, only about 0.9cm (about 3/4 in) and that it is semi-aggressive in nature.  It is an invasive form of cancer, so she will be having an MRI to see if the cancer has spread any where else in her body.  After that, she needs to have a lymph node biopsy, which will help to determine what type of treatment she has.  Then after that, she will have the BRCA test to see if she carries the gene for breast cancer.  This is actually pretty scary for me since I know that my great grandmother, my grandmother and her twin, and now my mom have all had breast cancer.  If she does not have the gene I will be very surprised (no one else in my grandmother's family had breast cancer except for her twin sister), but you never know.  This diagnosis has also made me re-evaluate my eating habits.  I still don't always make the best choices, but I know that whatever changes I make are going to be lifestyle changes, not just momentary changes.  I will be 38 this summer and I have 3 small children.  Thankfully, it seems as if breast cancer tends to hit after menopause in my family, but the time is now to make the changes, not wait until something happens.  Right now, I'm all about prevention.  Any suggestions on cancer preventing diets is always helpful and very much appreciated!

Here's to making lifestyle changes that will help me be a healthier happier person and making them stick!
Amy

Second Post of the Night: My Diet

So this is my second post of the night.  Too Much?  Maybe, but I want to make sure that I write down my successes and my failures/set backs.  One of the big successes that I have had is drinking my green smoothie in the morning instead of my usual pancakes, french toast, bagel, etc.  I have been throwing a bunch of fruit including, bananas, oranges, berries, granny smith apples and blending them with water and then I've been adding some swiss chard for the greens.  It's been pretty satisfying along with my tea.  I haven't had any coffee for a few weeks now.  For a little while, I was still drinking coffee once in a while, but then I realized I really no longer liked the taste, it was more of a habit than anything.  I still am having trouble with eating a healthy lunch, but today I had left over rice and beans and really enjoyed it.  I also had it for dinner.  I am thinking that the left overs are so much better since the spices sit and flavor the rice and beans more.  I can't wait for tomorrow when I get to eat tonight's left overs. 

I really need to get books on how to make my own recipes.  things like, what spices go together, ratios of different ingredients.  I want to be more adventurous and creative with my cooking.  I don't want to just follow a recipe.  I want to come up with my own recipe.  I am thinking that Asian style food is the way that I tend to like to eat so I need to learn more about that style of cooking.  I am also definitely trying to lean more vegan and even somewhat raw in the different recipes that I make.  Hopefully one of these days, I will have this way of eating become a lifestyle. I don't want to ever diet again.  I want to maintain healthy eating habits so that my lifestyle ensures that I maintain my weight and my health remains good.

As for se backs, I won't write about them now.  I am going to forget about them and move forward.  I have a meeting to go to tonight and I am going to be good with what I eat.  Hopefully , there will be healthy foods and not just junk food.  If there is only junk food, I will really need to evaluate if I really need to eat it, probably not.

Hopefully I get a few readers to help me on my journey with this blog.  If not, this is my place to come clean and share with who ever reads this, the struggles of living a handmade and natural life.  Good living is not all about diet.  It's about following your passions, living a healthy active life, maintaining private time with your significant other, maintaining family time, nurturing and maintaining friendships, having hobbies, and just living a happy life.

BTW-one of the benefits, at least I am assuming it's from changing my diet (at least a little) is today was the first day in over a week that I did not have a head ache at all.  No ibuprofen today.  I was actually getting worried.  I had never had that many headaches in a row.

Amy

Passions

I know, I know!  I've probably written more about my passions in life than I should, mostly because I am not really following through with them.  The thing is, I feel that if you don't maintain constant thoughts about your dreams and your passions, they very quickly fade and die!  What are my passions in  life?  Other than my family, who are the most important part of my life, I feel very passionate about living naturally, eating healthy, being creative, and looking for things that maybe outside the box.

As some of you know, I am a social worker by profession.  I have about 12 years experience working with the geriatric population and in nursing homes (some nursing homes have younger people in them too).  I got my MSW in 2007 and between getting married and having my 3 kids, I haven't really done much with my career since graduation.  While I only had my undergrad degree, I thought long and hard about going back to school.  Did I really want to go back for a MSW, or did I want to branch out and do something totally different?  I often thought about going back to school to get my dietician degree, but then I figured the degree would just point me in teh direction of the SAD (standard american diet), again I wanted something that was out of the box.  After a while I thought about going back to school for an art therapy degree.  That actually would be a littel out of the box, as I'm not sure all insurances (probably a primary payer source for many people) actually pay for that type of therapy.  I had a mentor lead me to get my MSW, and then I could think about using my MSW and my passions as a way to treat people using more alternative methods.  Unfortunately, at this time in my life, I have not been able to persue many alternative therapy trainings.  I have taken a conference on journal therapy and would love to do more on that.  I have taken a conference on yoga therapy and again would love to learn more.  I have also taken a conference on art therapy, and would absolutely love to learn more on that.  I have so many different interests that I think could help me in my social work practice, but until I get my LICSW, which will not be for some time (not starting til at least when the twins go to school which isn't for another 4 years). 

In the meantime, I would love to take classes on the things that I have already mentioned as well as more alterntative therapies.  I would love to also incorporate different eating plans into my learning and my social work practice.  I would love to learn more about aromatherapy and it's affect on mood and behavior.  I just really want to incorporate My passions into my professional lifee too.  That way, I think that I will be a better social worker, if I am using things that I actually believe in and also be happier than jsut using the standard talk therapy.

While I am waiting for all this to happen, I really need to start following my passions in my own life, especially if I want to reach others with them.  I need to stop following the SAD and start incorporating the different diets that I think benefit people.  I need to continue to make time for my creative endeavors.  I need to continue to live as natural and handmade life as possible.  I think once I get into a rhythm, things will get easier to maintain.  It's just getting into that rhythm, that is tough.

This is a goal that I will continue to work on.  I know that as I learn more for my personal life, I will learn things for my professional life too.  I just think that I need to make sure that I get some sort of certification in the different things that I learn if I plan to use it in my professional life too.  I guess life is alwways a work in progress, and we are always learning!

Here's to following your passions and living the life that you truly want to be living!
Amy

Life

Life has been a little crazy lately.  There's really not too much going on, but with summer and the heat and the garden and just plain old everything that needs to get done around the house, I feel like I have been on the go all the time.  This has really gotten in the way of doing things right.  I have not done anything creative lately at all.  I keep saying I'm going to, but I never get around to it.  I am in the process of trying to make a baby carrier like a Babyhawk.  I just can't seem to get the sewing machine out.  I have so many projects that I want to make especially on the sewing machine.  i need to force myself to be creative and make things with the supplies that I have!  I have also done a horrible job of eating healthy and cooking at home.  We have been eating out way too much lately.  I really need to get back on track and start cooking and eating healthy.

My husband has been getting out in the garden and doing a great job at taking care of things there.  I am getting a little disappointed though with how it is looking.  We have a few tomatoes, 1 great zucchini, a couple of peppers, maybe a spaghetti squash or 2.  I am hoping that in time, things will pick up.  We have had a horrible heat wave here with little to no rain.  The grass looks like it usually does in August, so I am hoping that we get rain more often and hopefully that will help things grow better.  Next year we will plan better and hopefully have better soil since we are also composting this year.  Only time will tell how our garden will be and hopefully we will have veggies to get us through some meals!  Oh, and I forgot we also have a cauliflower and have had a little broccoli.

I am getting totally frustrated with my cloth diapers.  I am using prefolds with covers and had been loving them for the last year except for the rashes that the kids are getting!  I feel like every time I get their rashes cleared up, they come back.  I can't for the life of me figure out what I m doing wrong.  I think I may need to strip them again since we have had an issue with water pressure related to our filter system.  The filters have all been changed and now we have normal water pressure.  Hopefully, if I strip them again and we continue to maintain water pressure, things will get back to normal.  If not, I plan to buy new prefolds and maybe even use disposables until the kids rash clears up!

I joined in a couch to 5K with another twin mom.  I walked only 1 time last week and didn't run at all.  My husband and I need to get back on track and get exercising again.  I have 1 more week til I start back to work part time.  I want to spend this week enjoying my last week without needing to worry about being back home for work.  I think we may go up to Franconia notch, kangamagus highway area and do some walking and sight seeing with the kids.  We will spend Wed night having a birthday cake for my husband's aunt.  The rest of the week I just want to enjoy, but also still make sure that we work on the couch to 5K program.

Hopefully, my life will settle and I can get back to the life that I want to lead.  I really want to start cooking again, but I have to admit (as much as I hate to) I do like to eat out.  I also like to eat junk food.  I need to start eating healthy and getting healthy and start having better habits for my kids to follow!

Amy

Living Well!

I continue to try to live my life the way I truly want to.  There are many things that I am working towards at the same time.  I am trying to use as many handmade items as possible, eat as healthy as possible, exercise, be creative, garden, raise my children as naturally and healthy as possible, and be a good person as well as teach my children to be good people!

Handmade items:  I am trying to cook at home, make most of my products ie: body care,  house cleaning, gardening, even some clothing for the kids (If I get good enough I will eventually include myself in this).

Eating Healthy:  I had started out saying that I wanted to be a vegetarian or even vegan maybe, but I am now actually doing the Body Ecology diet.  This diet is for people with issues with Candida.  I am trying this diet for a multitude of reasons, but I have an allergy to candida which I am taking weekly shots for, and there are other issues that I have that I won't  go into!  I mentioned this diet to one of the nurses doing my allergy testing and she said that this is a diet we should all be following for just basic health.  My husband did the diet a few years back and when he retested for Candida, he was in the normal range!  That is good news.  He wants me to get tested so that I can know wether or not I have it and that will dictate how seriously I follow the diet.  Either way, this is a diet that I want to follow to help with my carb issues.  I have been following it for a couple of days with some difficulty, but this is probably the best I have ever done on it!  You'll be reading more about my struggles with the diet!

Exercise: I need to exercise more.  I am planning on trying to get out and walk daily, with or without the kids.  I am also planning on doing some yoga.  I am really looking forward to getting healthy and getting back in shape after being in grad school (was not healthy at all), getting married and pregnant right after graduation, then having twins 10 1/2 months after my first son was born!

Be creative: I really love to be creative!  I used to scrapbook, rubber stamp, make jewelry, and so much more.  Unfortunately 3 kids limits the amount of time that I have to do any of this!  I think it is really important for me to maintain this since it is something I love to do!

Gardening: We pretty much finished the butterfly garden and most of the gardens in the front of the house.  Now it is just a waiting game for them all to bloom!  We need to get started on our veggie garden since I would love to not have to rely on the grocery stores this summer of at all possible!  I would love to go to the farmers markets to buy what ever I can't get from our garden or from family and friends.  My only issues is that i feel like the farmers markets near me are more for people to go to since it is the trendy thing to do, not because they truly want to be healthy and eat local, but that's a rant for another day!  I plan to look at some farmers markets out in Western MA to see if they are any different since I truly believe that there is a different way of life out there!

View of the butterfly garden from the kids window!  Doesn't look like much now, but once it blooms, I think it will be beautiful!

I just want to raise good kids and live a good healthy, happy, life!  It is going to be an ongoing struggle to live the way I want to, but it is a struggle worth doing!

Wishcasting Wednesday

Jamie at http://jamieridlerstudios.ca/ asks:

How do you wish to bloom?

I wish to bloom into the person that I wish to be: a green living, healthy, creative, natural living person.  I am slowly becoming that person, but it is ever so slow.  I almost feel like a flower that opens up each day then closes as the night comes.  By this I mean, I start out every day with the best of intentions, but often by then end of the day, I lose some of the ambition that I started the day with.  Hopefully, as time goes on, I will totally bloom into the person that I wish to be.  I will continue to work at this wish daily and as I have said in other posts, I will not beat myself up when I do not reach those goals. 

Thanks Jamie for having these Wednesday posts.  Not only does it make me think about what I want, but I love reading everyone else's wishes.

As I said above, I wish to change who I am currently to who I really believe that I am.  I am amazed at how some of the things that I wish to change about myself are the things that I never wanted to be growing up.  It is amazing how things change when you become an adult.  One of my facebook friends just wrote about hanging out her laundry.  I so want to have a laundry line.  This is one of the things that I resisted as a child.  I hated hanging out my laundry and longed to use the dryer.  I hated weeding the garden and picking dinner from the garden, but now I am planning on planting a garden that will hopefully feed my family.  I am saving scraps of veggies so that I can make veggie broth instead of wasting all those good nutrients.  I want to make my kids clothes and maybe even myself clothes.  I hated the handmade clothes that I wore as a child.  I also hated hand me downs, but I really need to start looking at consignment stores as a place to shop.  They have so many nice items that are barely used.  This will help by buying used and also help with saving money.  I also want to continue and increase the amount of personal care products and making my own food.  I also want to use the car less and walk or ride my bike more often.  Again this helps to save money and also is healthier for me, my family, and the planet.

I am trying to be a more green, healthy, creative, natural person and hope that some of those things that I resisted as a child will come back to me so that I can work on being the person that I want to be.

Amy

Healthy Eating

So I know that I don't have a huge following, but I thought that I would blog about Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution.  I was totally amazed and disgusted by how we eat and feed our kids here in the US.  BAck when I was in grad school, I had to write a grant.  My group wrote a grant to bring inner city kids to a farm in Maine  to show them where food comes from and how to eat healthy.  I was interested back then and that project got me even more interested in healthy eating.  Slowly, I have been learning about different ways of healthy eating. Most recently, I have started to totally decrease the amount of meat in my diet.  I would love to become a vegan, but I don't know if I could.  I am just happy with the fact that I very rarely eat red meat or even meat at all.  I still have eggs and dairy and sometimes eat salmon, but this is much more healthy than I have eaten in the past.  The biggest thing that I need to work on is eating less starchy carbs.  What I would love to do is go on a vegan/gluten free diet.  This is a difficult task for me as I am a self proclaimed crab addict.  I need to eat more fruits and veggies and less bread and fats.  I no longer drink coffee.  I drink tea and not that much.  I am loving my no coffee life and maybe if I can get to discontinuing bread from my life I'll feel the same way about bread as I do coffee.  Maybe I just need to do what I did with coffee, give up bread.  I may need to replace it with something else like I replaced coffee with tea.  That being said, I need to ensure that my kids eat healthy and that I teach them good habits.

My goal is to learn how to have healthy eating habits and plan healthy meals for me and my family.  I need to incorporate this into my lifestyle as well as the other healthy habits that I want to incorporate.  More on that in another blog.