Summer Life

It's officially the first week of summer. The kids are finally out of school, while at least for a week. July 6th, the kids go back to school 4 days a week for 6 weeks. I'm really happy that they get to have summer school at such a young age to help them maintain what they have learned through their year in school. I think it will help them have a better start to the school year in the fall. That being said, summer is a time to have fun and enjoy some time away from the hectic pace of the school year. Unfortunately, I have to continue to work, but I am going to continue to work part time so that we can have some family fun. I am hoping that we can take some time and enjoy some time hiking and spending time outside with family and friends. I am also hopeful that we can get to the beach and enjoy the water. I think this may be the summer that we get the kids out kayaking. I want to make sure that we expose our kids to spending time outside in nature and enjoy everything that our earth has given us. This winter, we started taking the kids snowshoeing. We all had fun and got outside in one of the worst winters we have seen in a while. Now it's time to share our summer activities, even though we have started taking them hiking and camping a couple of years ago and plan to continue that for the years to come. With summer hopefully in full swing, we have started planting our garden. We have most of our tomato plants and our pepper plants in the garden. We have what seems like a good growth of salad, and we had a good start to our peas, but they got eaten by bunnies. My husband took time and fixed our fence that got damaged this winter, so hopefully that will help us keep the animals out and our veggies in. We have also planted seeds for cucumbers and luffa plants. I just bought a container blueberry and raspberry plant. I am looking forward to being able to go out and pick berries as we need or want them. I need to get back to the local nursery and pick up a couple of eggplant plants as well as some potato plants (I have purple potato seeds prepared for planting) and get our squash and kale/Swiss chard plants going. I really want to get away from eating predominantly meat and start eating a lot more green veggies. I really want to start following through with my diet goals and my creative goals in life. I need to start eating clean and spending time being creative. I need to continue to get my life organized and get rid of things that I don't need. The sad thing is, I know what I need to do, I just need to get motivated to do it. I am hoping that eating a clean diet with less processed foods, less starchy carbs, more green leafy veggies and lean protein (including beans), and way less sugar. In our society, it is so difficult to eat clean and healthy. There are so many reasons and justifications to make you feel better about eating processed junk food. I truly believe, once you get your body free of processed foods, you will succeed in living a clean natural life. Its not easy to rid your body of these foods, but it is something that I continue to try to work on. I also want to work on my goal of learning about herbs, natural medicine, and essential oils. I am hoping to share some of my challenges and hopefully more success as I go along. This is something that I continue to work tirelessly on and something that I will always work on. Here's to living a handmade and natural life and enjoying the process of getting there. Amy

Thoughts

For the last few weeks, even months, I keep thinking about food, diet, nutrition as well as creativity, gardening, and other alternative/complementary health practices. With regards to my diet and my philosophy regarding diets, I think the biggest thing that I want to follow is clean eating. I plan to work at following the Palo diet, but I really want to eat clean. I am not against eating beans and grains, and even some dairy. I am also not against eating junk food once in a while. What I am against is beating myself up and judging myself when I don't follow my beliefs to the exact letter of the law. I am involved in a Facebook group about eating real food, and recently, there was a post about moderation and how moderation is not something that they would even think of. They were talking about how there is no such thing as eating healthy most of the time, but eating junk in moderation. Well, for me, that is not even something I could or would ever consider except for a short time. I would consider being extremely serious and focused if I were to do an elimination diet, or maybe a detox diet. With regards to my diet, I would be in a horrible position if I were to never eat anything bad for me. I think, at least for me, if I never had anything "bad" for me I would end up binge eating junk instead of allowing myself to eat a small amount and enjoy it, but then get back to eating healthy. I think, especially as women, we tend to beat ourselves up and have all sorts of negatives voices in our heads when we think we have done something wrong. I think its time to stop beating ourselves up when we "stray" and start enjoying life. It's important to be healthy and eat good nutrition foods, but it's also important to be good to yourself and enjoy life. Eating healthy and eating a good diet is important, but so is keeping your mind and spirit healthy too. I certainly need to focus more on keeping my mind and spirit healthy as well as my body. More recently, I have been looking and thinking, and talking about my diet, but I've kind of forgotten about my other passions. With the crazy winter we've had, I've somewhat forgotten about how I love to be in the dirt in my garden. I can't wait to get out there and get growing again. That will certainly help with my eating as well saw my budget. I also haven't been sewing or crafting or drawing like I want to. I also want to start meditating or even doing yoga as well as exercising with cardio and strength training. I am going to continue to work on my diet and continue to try to eat healthy. I am going to start making time to be creative. I need to make a point to be active and exercise. I also want to make a point to get outside and enjoy being outside and not stuck in the house. I know that I will make small changes and probably need to take one step forward and sometimes take 2 back, but I will continue to move forward without beating myself up. I chose to make this for dinner tonight. It was curry turkey meatballs from paleomg.com. It was so good and really easy.

My last creative project

These are my goals and my plans! Amy

Curly Girl

I am a CURLY GIRL!  There I admitted it!  I have curly hair and finally at 37 years old, I really like my curls. After having my twins, and having 3 kids (my oldest is 10 1/2 months older than my twins), I decided to grow out my super short hair (boy short) which I had for probably over 5 years.  I would tell people that I kept my hair short because I hated how curly and frizzy, and crazy my hair was when it was long.  I decided that I had no time to get my hair cut every 3-4 weeks, not to mention the money I would spend only to have my hair never look the way I hoped that it would.  I had attempted to grow my hair out for my wedding 3 years ago, and that never happened.  I have super short hair in my wedding photos, which is fine, but i wish I had been able to embrace my curls back then.  Just recently, I was at Cambridge Naturals, a local natural food store and saw the book "curly girl, The Handbook".  I flipped through it and it was love at first read.  I have been reading how shampooing your hair is bad for hair, but here were "curly girls" saying that not shampooing actually helped your curls.  I was hooked!  I had been limiting how much I was shampooing my hair prior, but now I am going the no shampoo route.  I believe that I have Botticelli curls, which definitely means no shampoo for this head.  It also means that I will mostly be using water and once a week, I will cleanse my hair with conditioner.  I have been really enjoying my curls this time around, and now i think I will even more.  I plan to find a recipe for conditioner and hair gel that I can make myself and only use those products on my hair!  I know that hair gel can be made from flax seeds and that should be really good for my hair vs the junk that gets put into commercially based products.  Now I just need a good moisturizing conditioner recipe!  My husband who currently has super short hair, usually has curly hair when it is longer.  Even though he has curly hair, he has joined in on the no shampooing and maybe is even considering goring his hair longer again!  My 3 kids all have curl to their hair, my daughter being the curliest.  I plan to do the hole no shampoo thing if I can.  Unfortunately, they are still only 2 1/2 and 19 months, so they get food and things in their hair that may actually need to be cleaned out, but for the most part shampoo is no longer in our house. 

So if you are a curly girl, embrace it! Don't wait as long as I did to love what you have and do what's right for what you have!  Curls are beautiful, and like I've always been told, there are a ton of people that would die to have your hair!

Amy

Blogging

I am loving my blogs.  I love this one because it helps keep me honest and helps me to think about what I really want out of life.  I am getting very excited with the weather that we are currently having.  It makes me want to get outside with the kids and enjoy nature!  I love taking the kids to the park, going for walks, playing in the back yard!  I can't wait til we start our garden.  I have some plants that really need to be transplanted into larger planters so that they don't die.  I am so excited that I was able to start plants from seeds, I just hope that they last until it is time to plant them outside.  I think this year, we may need to plant our garden with plants from the store instead of plants that I grew from seeds.  Next year I will have  a better plan.  I need to start planing my flower garden for the front and the side of the house.    I talked to my husband about putting up a clothes line and I think we will.  Our weekends are going to be busy trying to get everything in order, but what a great way to pass the time!

I need to get my act together a little bit more so that I am not wasting this valuable time.  I love being home and I have so many things that I want/need to do.  I need to organize myself so that housework gets done, cooking gets done without waiting to the last minute, projects get completed and don't build up so that they are overwhelming and not enjoyable, and so many more things.  This is not a means to beat myself up, but just a means of me writing down what I need to do so that I get things done and enjoy this time I have with my kids!

I am now off to do a little housework while the twins sleep and then I really need to get the thank-you's completed since it has been a month since Michael's birthday.  Then I need to start making a couple of dresses for my daughter and some short sets for my sons.  Never mind taking care of my plants

Amy

BTW-My neighbors who are very much into gardening have offered to come over and make suggestions on what we should plant.  The husband also works at a nursery nearby so he knows what they have in stock and can make recommendations as well as the wife may be able to get us cutting from her mom's garden.  What a great way to be green, use cutting from another garden in the area that you live so that you know they grow in your zone and you are not buying new plants, just using existing ones.  I am so looking forward to my gardens!!!!!!