Blackberries, Bathing Suits, and Barleymax

photo: Blackberry/coconut smoothie

(9:04 PM)
Lately, I've been drinking one cocoBmax drink a day. This has caused me to accumulate a surplus of young coconut meat in my fridge. Now that the blackberries are abundant, I've been experimenting with blackberry/coconut smoothies. The best one I've come up with so far had blackberries, coconut meat, dates, and banana. It was more like a sorbet: creamy and sweet!

I seem to be experiencing some minor cold symptoms. For the last three days I have woken up with a soar throat. It goes away by the late morning. More importantly though, I have been experiencing some sinus issues. My nose has been running and/or stuffy and I've been sneezing a LOT the last few days. It all seems to be happening in only one nostril, actually. I think I may have kicked all of this off by drinking a heavy handed dose of Bmax in my drink four days ago. Instead of feeling energized afterwards, I felt like I needed to lay down. Then I got brave again and yesterday I used a lot of Barleymax in my drink again. The SAME THING happened. I got really drowsy and felt kind of out of it for quite a while. I think the symptoms may be related to my Barleymax intake. Yesterday I woke up with a very empty stomach since I don't think I had much dinner the night before. I had 3-4 t Bmax w/ coco water, then about 30 min later, I tried to eat since I felt a dip in energy after the Bmax drink and I knew there was not much food in me. I ate about 1/2 cup of cream of celery soup and I felt SOOOOOOO full. My body DID NOT want me to eat any more. My throat felt like it closed up and I got a little headachy. I actually experienced these same feelings when I was having lots of Bmax a few weeks ago. I felt out of it, so I took a nap. When I woke up I needed some energy and wanted to try and eat food. I ate 2 large salads right in a row followed by a small portion of cacao dessert. Afterwards I felt like it may have been a mistake to eat that much salad. I felt all the salad digesting for quite a while and I was not hungry again for the rest of the day. I tried to drink some kombucha in the evening to boost my energy which was pretty low all day, but again, my body didn't want it. I felt very full right after I took just a few sips. It felt wrong to try and drink the rest of the glass, so I put it back in the fridge. The last couple of days my appetite has been w-e-i-r-d, like I just don't want that much food. Or like I just CANNOT STOMACH that much food. This is very unusual for me since I love food and I love to eat and I usually eat more food than I think I really need to. I think this is very related to the Bmax and symptoms I have right now. Today I tried to go easier on the Barleymax. I had 2 t Bmax with 8 oz water, 20-24 oz kombucha, 1 medium greens/walnuts/cranberries/orange dressing salad, and (of course) cacao dessert. I started off with liquids and didn't eat as much food today and I am feeling good. I still have sinus symptoms, but I don't mind them too much. Especially because I think this is a sign of detox/cleansing.

I've been enjoying this incredible salad dressing that I want to share. It's:

3-4 oranges
some fresh anise, tarragon, or fennel and
sea salt to taste (I use 1/2 t)

I blend it up and then stick it in the fridge to marinate. When I use it, I add some flax, hemp, or olive oil to my salad. Its so fresh and light and sweet, but still full of flavor. Here is what it looks like:



The weather has been SO GREAT lately. I don't want it to end. I took a really nice walk by the river yesterday evening as the sun was setting.



Life is good.

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Back in Business

photo: wild local blackberries! Mmmmm....

(3:40 AM) I've missed blogging terribly this last week. My computer stopped working last Friday. Instead of trying to catch up on an entire weeks worth of posts, however - which seems a little daunting and overwhelming - I will just pick up here.

Today was lovely. I've consumed in the following order: one cocoBmax, a cup or so of wild blackberries, a large salad with 1/2 avocado/soaked pumpkin seeds/pine nuts/raisins/young coconut meat/a new Italian herb dressing that I made from lemon juice and herbs from the garden, 1 cacao dessert, 1/2 cup of cream of celery soup (celery/tahini/spinach/basil/garlic/sea salt), and then more cacao dessert.

Hey guess what? I figured out how to make it possible for readers of this blog to subscribe to it! This way, you don't have to keep checking the blogsite to see if I've posted a new post. You get an email or an RSS feed, depending on which you choose, of each new post after I write it. Sign up in the top right margin of this blog to get emails of my blog entries and sign up here to get the RSS feeds.

More coming soon!

Miss Muffet

Greetings! I am very excited about this blog entry. I feel that it might be the most important one I have done yet. Ok, to update everyone, a little while ago, I started getting strong urges to be outdoors more, to be with plants more, and to grow my own food. That led me to the gardening adventures I've been having in my backyard. I recently created my first real vegetable garden. This is what it looked like a few weeks ago:

Here's what the garden looked like a few days ago:

Very exciting! So exciting that I decided to create another garden:

Since I don't really know much about gardening at all, I figured it might help my chances for success if I equipped myself with some knowledge. On this quest for knowledge, I've come across some things that have made a very strong impression on me. I will proceed to share those things with you.

A friend recently lent me this book that looked exactly like the kind of gardening techniques I am interested in:

The book is a self-titled Seeds of Change book. From it, I'm learning about Bill Mollison who is a major advocate of permaculture. He defines permaculture (whose "name is derived from permanent agriculture") as "the conscious design and maintenance of agriculturally productive ecosystems that have the diversity, stability, and resilience of natural ecosystems. It is the harmonious integration of landscape and people providing their food, energy, shelter, and other material and nonmaterial needs in a sustainable way." I thought that was a good definition of permaculture. In Chapter 2, I came across the following quote by Mr. Mollison, "The American lawn uses more resources than any other agricultural industry in the world. It uses more phosphates than India, and puts on more poisons than any other form of agriculture." The authors go on to say, "Incredibly, lawns use more equipment, labor, fuel, and agricultural chemicals than all large-scale farming in the United States, making it the largest single 'agricultural' sector. Despite this, only some 10 percent of lawns are ever used." Reading that made me feel good about what I am doing right now.

Low and behold, as it turns out, the chapter right before "Raw Spirituality" in the book The Raw Food Gourmet by Ms. Gabrielle Chavez (see the blog entry prior to this one) is "Gardening in the Raw"! And what a treat for me that chapter was to read!!!! Ms. Chavez talks about "gardening conciousness" and makes the completely profound point that we are all gardeners! Her words blew me away when I read them:

"As long as we live on the earth, we inhabit nature. We constantly affect nature; nature responds. In this sense, are we not all gardeners, albeit mostly unconscious ones?"

HAH! INDUBITABLY!

"In cultivating a gardening consciousness, along with some simple practices, we humans reclaim a gift that was always ours: harmony with the natural world, including the natural world in the garden of our own bodies."

Words cannot describe how deeply I identified with these sentences. And what a poignantly beautiful concept: the garden of our own bodies... Once again, I felt the words of Ms. Chavez gently pointing me the way towards greater joy and communion with my Beingness: via intimacy with plants and Nature. Just as I suspected. Yes. I am discovering some answers in this soul-searching campaign of mine.

I would like to share a few more thoughts by Ms. Chavez: "If you are already a gardener when you come to a raw eating consciousness, rejoice. Everything you do in the garden will enhance and support your new lifestyle. If you have yet to see that you are a gardener, let me introduce you to this healing, grounding, symbiotic part of a raw life....As you go about whatever garden practices you choose, I invite you to open your mind and heart to the possibility of friendship with all the beings of nature, from elemental beings to spiritual beings. As human beings, we have the potential--some would say the necessity--of taking our place in this larger ecology of life."

Thank you Ms. Chavez.

Here is a photo album of my recent garden pictures and some self portrait shots:

Garden Photos and Self Portrait Shots

Today I had 1 coco/Bmax drink, 3 green salads with orange juice/anise/salt/hemp seed oil dressing, 1/2 avocado, 1/4 c soaked pumpin seeds, 20 oz of sweet tea, and 2/3 cup of ground walnut/pecan/cacao/agave nectar mixture

I was talking with my mother on the telephone today and before we hung up, she said, "Goodbye, Miss Muffet." I was like, "Miss Muffet?" And she said, "yeah, I've been reading your blog. You know, little Miss Muffet sat on a tuffet eating her curds and whey...wait...what's the nursery rhyme - the one about a garden?" I said, "Ah, yes. Mary Mary quite contrary how does your garden grow? (pause) But you can call me Miss Muffet if you want."
I LOVE YOU, MOM!

Contemplating spiritual ecstasy

There are so many things I want to write in this post that I am not sure I will be able to fit them all in tonight...First of all, I'm feeling much better. My nausea and indigestion are all gone, hallelujah! Next, I've been wanting to discuss my "raw status" for a while now. So, at the beginning of all this blogging a few months ago, I still had some cooked food in my diet such as chocolate tarts and cooked vegetables. I wanted to share the observation here on the blog that I have not been eating any cooked food lately. I am not going to worry about being "100%" raw from now on because I feel like that would be potentially limiting myself and depriving/denying myself something. Plus, I am finding that I prefer to concern myself with what I am eating and how I am feeling right now as opposed to what I will be eating in the future. Notwithstanding, I have noticed myself naturally gravitating towards all and higher raw. I have been physically craving more fresh foods and less nuts/seeds. (Note: on an emotional level, I am still wanting to eat lots of nuts/fats/sweet things). I also had a new salad dressing today that I really loved: fresh orange juice with pulp, chopped fresh tarragon, hemp seed oil, and sea salt. It was so much 'softer' than my usual vinaigrette which has a good bit of apple cider vinegar in it. I felt like I could enjoy the flavors of the greens in the salad so much more without the strong vinegar flavor. I got the idea for this dressing from the salad that Tommie brought to the raw food potluck this past weekend. Speaking of the raw food potluck, click below if you would like to see photos of the raw food potluck and the yummy things I ate on Sunday:
2007 April Raw Food Potluck

Today I have consumed 1 coco/Bmax drink, 1 usual salad with dressing described above, 1/2 cup ground pecans w/ 2 T ground cacao and agave nectar, 20 oz kombucha, a bit of sweet tea, and 1 cup arame seaweed salad.

I've been doing a good bit of contemplating lately...and a little bit of reading, too. I would like to share a few passages from a raw food book that I was browsing through for recipe ideas today.

The bulk of The Raw Food Gourmet: Going Raw for Total Well-being by Gabrielle Chavez is raw food recipes and tips, but in the very back of the book, there is a chapter titled "Raw Spirituality". I'm pretty sure I have read this chapter before, but the words seemed new and fresh to me this afternoon. Ms. Chavez, a Christian and theologian writes, "I believe that eating raw not only supports spiritual practice, it is a spiritual practice, one that is available to all seekers." Yes. I feel that. I feel so strongly about raw foods and my feelings keep growing stronger over time. To say that it is my passion is true. To say that it is my religion doesn't seem quite right. To say that it is my spiritual practice sounds exactly right.

So as the days go by, I find myself going deeper and deeper into this soul-searching journey of mine. And I am definitely searching. Here is a passage by Ms. Chavez that really hit home for me:

The ability to attune to and experience a greater reality is a sought-after prize even in our Western, materialistic society. People might seek such experience in nature, art, sexuality, consciousness-altering substances, and/or religious ritual. But seekers invariably find that what's in the way of a deeper connection with higher Beingness is their own selves. We are too distracted, too tired, too confused, too anxious, too restless, too stuck in physical, emotional, and mental malfunction to taste and see and feel spiritual ecstasy. The challenge then becomes not so much to find God or some Higher Power, but to change what it is about ourselves that prevents joyful communion.

...the challenge then becomes not to find God or a Higher Power, but to change what it is about ourselves that prevents joyful communion. Hmmm...I want to change the things about myself that prevent joyful communion. I must give myself credit for coming a long way, but I also know that I have plenty of room for more joyful communion:) I've been asking myself many questions lately...Am I on the right path? Am I doing the right thing right now - leaving my market work and just being here at home, contemplating? Should I reach out to others about raw foods or should I just hush up about it? How can I go further and grow more? How can I experience higher Beingness, joyful communion and spiritual ecstasy?

Ms. Chavez writes on healing ourselves and the world:

I was surprised and delighted with my growing awareness of the life energy of plants as I began to incorporate them into my diet while they were still alive. My lifelong habit has been to pluck a fruit or vegetable from the tree or ground or produce bin and consume it as though it were mine because I grew it or bought it. Now that seems inconsiderate of the life I intend to eat, so I am learning to lovingly acknowledge its existence and even have the courtesy to ask before taking. The joy that beams back when I remember to do this confirms for me that life is connected through consciousness. Dorothy MacLean, one of the founders of the Findhorn community, teaches that communion with the plant and devic kindoms of God is a timely part of human spiritual evolution. The plants not only nourish and heal us, they can teach us from their wisdom how to restore and heal the earth. Healing is not complete until all kingdoms are at one...

We are all in this together as communal beings and individual wellness cannot be attained, finally, until everyone is well. Spiritual people understand and welcome this truth with its attendant call to service. I believe that raw fooders already serve by taking responsibility for their dietary health and by consuming fewer of the earth's resources. Sharing our good food and what we've learned about is also a great service. Let us be prepared to do even more. Investing one's time and energy to help heal the world makes for a satsisfying, meaningful life as well as a long and healthy one.

Here are the answers I have so far: I do believe in plants. I do believe that they are the key to healing ourselves and the world. That is why I am trying to become more intimate with them right now through gardening. That is why I am continuing to eat raw foods. Plants are one of the only things that makes complete sense to me right now. I do believe in sharing. That is why I have begun this blog. I will continue to share as long as it feels right.

I will close this all with one last quote from Ms. Chavez, "When the food we take in thrums with life, so do we. Grateful, we may open our hearts, adding love to love. As we embrace the flow of life blessing us, gratitude grows to joy and joy rises to ecstasy."

Gut reaction

(11:31PM) ahye yahye yahye...or however you spell it...I've got tummy troubles. For the last 24 hours or so I have had major digestive issues. My tummy is poofy with air and pain and I have experienced some other unpleasantries that I don't care to discuss at this moment. I can't quite make sense of it, and I thought it would go away as the day wore on. Here is what I have been eating:

Today I had 1 Coco/Bmax drink, blackberry/banana smoothie, 2 carrots with 6 oz of cilantro dip, 13 almond crackers with a couple of ounces of cilantro dip and 24 oz or so of sweet tea. I also fixed a concoction of 2 t coconut oil, 2 t spirunlina, and 4 t bee pollen as an attempt at medicating myself. Yesterday I had 1 coco/Bmax drink, Tommie's leftover mung bean & spinach salad, my large usual salad (which I am very tired of now, BTW), about a cup and a half of almonds throughout the day w/ agave nectar and vanilla to season, 1 cup of arame seaweed salad, and a few stalks of celery w/ coconut/cumin dip. Sunday was the raw food potluck! All the food was incredible. I haven't eaten so many yummy things possibly ever. I mainly had large multiple servings of sumptuous, flavorful salads: Chester's green juice, Tommie's salad, Jay's salad, Dave's salad, and Kier's spinach dip:






I also had about 6 squares (and then some) of my new favorite dessert: vanilla almond fudge!



I want to write more, but I think I will take that opportunity tomorrow when I post all the new pictures. I'm ready to go lie down for now...

Bodies

(photo: Have you ever seen this before? I don't mean to be dirty in any way, I just thought it was neat)

(11:30PM)
Hmmmm...where to begin?

I'll start with a nice realization that I had yesterday about my body. I was sitting out in the backyard in my bathing suit in the sun, watching and observing my body as it moved, admiring the genius behind it all, when I realized that it had nothing to do with me. I love to admire and watch mine and other peoples' (and plants' and animals' and natures') bodies. They are so fascinating and mesmerizing...Sometimes its difficult not to stare...But whilst gazing away at myself (its safe b/c I don't mind my stares), a few new liberating thoughts struck me. I don't quite know how to phrase this, but I will do my best: I realized that I don't own my body. That it is not me at all. It is just a group of cells amidst many other groups of cells (all the other bodies). I have the liberty to play and experiment with this body more so than other ones, but in general, I have very little to do with the genius work of my body. I have very little to do with the patterns my veins have formed underneath my skin and the exact moments that my heart beats and the color of my eyes and the fact that I am breathing.

I've never done magic mushrooms before - albeit, I hope to - but I keep hearing how they give you a glimpse of enlightenment. Well, I felt like I got a taste of that when I had this realization experience. I'm always associating my 'self' with my body and trying to figure out if I am happy with it, if it is good enough, etc etc. But my body is the same as everyone elses! And everyone else's body belongs to me just as much as it belongs to them (b/c it really doesn't belong to them). So all the women whose bodies I admire and long for - GUESS WHAT- those are my bodies! Those bodies belong to me just as much as mine does! (Does this make sense???)

Well, I have to make one note here - I do have a little something to do with my body: I am my body's steward. In the same way that I have a responsibility to be a good steward of the earth and other beings that inhabit it, I have a responsibility to take the best care I can of this body. Having said that, I also have the responsibility to take the best care I can of everyone else's bodies. And in some ways, by taking care of one, I take care of the other also. Its was so freeing to realize this because I don't have to feel bad about my body anymore. I have the tendency to let negative thoughts regarding my body inhabit my mind. My body is beautiful and it is good enough and it is a work of genius and its a gift. Its a gift to have the opportunity to experience it. And now I don't have to worry about it!!!! I just get to watch it and observe it and appreciate it. And take good care of it.

I'm doing good, ya'll. I love getting so high on life like this...Moving on to food! Yesterday I had:

1 Coco/Bmax drink
lots of sweet tea, more than 32 oz.
a large usual salad
2-3 cacao desserts
50 garlic almonds
another cacao dessert
1 carrot w/ pesto
wild blackberries w/ honey
royal jelly (not really my thing, but I wanted to try some)

As you can see, I am still experimenting with lots of cacao and trying to figure out how it makes me feel and how much of it (if any) I want to incorporate into my long-term diet. I've been stretching a LOT the last couple of days and my body is beginning to feel really awesome from it. I got a lot of sun yesterday, even a little burn, but not enough to hurt. I LOVE SUNSHINE. I do. I used to think I was being so lazy if I just sat out in the sun doing nothing, but I'm beginning to realize how terribly important and wonderful it is. Its totally cleansing and therapeutic, it puts me in such a great mood, and its very energizing if I make sure to stay hydrated and nap when the urge strikes. Sunshine fuels me in all these ways and therefore improves my overall performance for all the other things I am doing. I got quite a few more plants in the ground yesterday. I'm really excited because I ordered a bunch of exotic heirloom seeds last night. I want to try growing some crazy melon varieties!

Today I had:
1 coco/Bmax drink
1 1/2 c wild blacberries
1 cacao dessert
usual salad
3 cacao desserts (hee hee hee)
sweet tea

Tomorrow is the raw food potluck! I am very excited, as usual. I will be posting lots of new pictures soon.

One more exciting thing to note: I found and have been enjoying what is possibly one of the best raw food blogs out there:
The Sunny Raw Kitchen
It is created by a beautiful woman named Carmella

and is incredibly well organized, very informative, and very inspiring, honest and poignant. She has links in the right margin to tons of online raw food recipes, raw food websites, and other raw food blogs! And all of her food creations look so good that if you check them out yourself, visions of them will probably reoccur in your dreams. I've done a LOT of salivating while visiting her blog :0)

Sweet raw food dreams,
Audry

Ode to Oranges

(photo: local oranges that taste much better than the ones in the store, markings and all)

(10:03PM)
Good evening! Today the weather was beautiful! Perfect. Sunny and breezy. I spent most of the day outside. A little of this, a little of that: cleaning, sunbathing, writing down goals, gardening, walking, stretching, composing poems and ....(drumroll) I played VIOLIN!!! Hallelujah! My old violin, it turns out, was right here at the house in my brothers closet! And I'm having so much fun with it!!!!!! It feels so good to play again! My posture could use some work, but I am picking up my old songs pretty quickly. I am terribly excited about this violin situation.

Last night I played violin until 1AM and decided I needed to go to bed. I was wide awake and a little hungry an hour later, so I fixed a snack: 4 Tbs ground cashews, 2 T ground coconut, a dash of coconut oil and some honey. I woke up around 9 and fixed a Coco/Bmax around 11:30 or noon. I ate 5 oranges throughout the afternoon, a large usual salad around 4:30, 2 cacao desserts, some sweet tea and around 9 PM bee pollen/cashew/spirulina/honey concoction. I was feeling so good this afternoon and appreciating the oranges so much, that I decided to write an Ode to them. If I wrote music, I would compose a song for them, but for now, I just have this poem:

Ode to Oranges

Dear Orange,
I like to look at you
You are so pretty and bright
You glow from the inside out
You look especially nice
when I hold you up to the light

You are very polite
and easy to be with in public
You are adventurous, too!
You'll go anywhere with me -
Oh Rolly-Polly,
Happy-Go-Lucky,
Everyone-Loves-You,
Orange.
They even named a color after you :)

You taste wonderful
Even when there is garlic on my fingers.
You are very generous
You feed me
A zillion times over
You are nice to hold
You fit perfectly in my hands
We make a good match ;)
You hold all the secrets of the universe
My yard is full of your skin.

I LOVE YOU!

Gosh, it feels good to garden

(9:11 PM)
Hi. So I need to be honest and tell everyone that I went through a little dip yesterday and last night, especially. My day started off well enough. It was rainy and gray most of the day so I spent a lot of time on the computer. Too much time. I've noticed that I have the tendancy to expect the computer to stimulate me. Towards the end of the day I started feeling really antsy. All of this escalated in me eating more food than I needed to and having some feelings of anxiety. Its been a while since I felt feelings like that so strongly. However, I made it through those rough moments. It was very humbling to be having those feelings. I realized I still have so much work to do on myself. The good news is, I can focus on that work more than ever before, now that I have more time and energy to do so.

Here is what I ate yesterday:
3 oranges
cacao dessert
big usual salad
cacao dessert (then things went amiss because I was not hungry anymore but decided to eat a lot more food)
200 garlic almonds
11-12 dates with cashew butter

As I said, I was feeling pretty weird the rest of the night after the almonds and dates. Not so hot. But I made it through. I slept outside last night (damp ground and all) and that immediately made me feel better before I went to bed. I think there is a lot to be said for fresh air. And it wasn't just any fresh air, some of it was the fresh air that my new plants in the garden are making. At least I like to think so. I went to bed around 11 or midnight and woke up around 8. I love hearing the birds chirping all around me so clearly first thing in the morning. I would like to build a sleeping contraption for myself out in the backyard. One that will help me utilize a mosquito net and a rain tarp and that will be preferably portable. I have no idea what it will look like yet. If you have any ideas, please send them my way.

I took it real easy today. I woke up and just sat outside in my pajamas with my discman and listened to some David Wolfe lectures. I cleaned some things in the kitchen. I finished off the mound of dishes, finally:) I did some stretching. I fixed a coconut/Barleymax drink around noon and it made me sleepy - my guess is that all that green powder was hard at work cleaning out my body. So I took a nice long nap. Then I woke up and fixed another coconut/Barleymax drink. Both of the drinks really felt good and hit the spot. I was smiling to myself shortly after I drank the first one and things only have gotten better since then. It was sunny in the afternoon, so I ate an orange and spent some time lying out in the sun. That hit the spot, too:) I love being out in the sun. Not during its strongest hours but the late morning and late afternoon hours. I try not to be out in the sun very much b/t the hours of 11:30 and 3. It feels so strong. After my time in the sun, I was ready to work in the garden. I spent the rest of the day doing just that. I took a break for a big usual salad and 2 cacao desserts and then got back to it. It felt good to be away from the computer all day. I might do that some more. OK, an hour or so ago, I just fixed another cacao dessert. All in all, I'm really proud of myself for all the things I did today to make myself feel better. And I do feel better. Working in the garden made me start to feel really joyful again. I look forward to riding this wave for a little while. I'll keep you posted.

Audry

So what the heck am I doing ya'll?

If you know me, you might be wondering that about me right now:)


(Photo: check out this guy! He was wiggling his tail a lot.)

Hello! So the big news in my life is that I am taking a break from my station at the farmers market. I have decided to do this for various reasons, some of the main ones being:

(1) R & R - believe it or not, the market gig is a LOT of work
(2) I want to focus my attention on some other projects that I have begun to get involved with such as growing my own food in the yard here, foraging for food locally, exploring my musical side, and driving my car less.
(3) I want to develop my relationship with nature more. I feel this urge very strongly right now.
(4) I want to stop and take some long, deep looks at what I'm doing with my life. I feel ready for some major soul-searching.

FOOD:
Today I ate:
5 small oranges
1 large salad w/ 1/3 avocado, 1/8 c soaked pumpkin seeds, lemon/garlic/cumin/flax oil dressing
2 cacao desserts
18 small dates w/ 3 T cashew butter
40 garlic almonds
16 oz honey sweetened tea
3 squares of Empowered Foods raw cacao candy bar (thank you, Alex! You know the way to a raw girl's heart!)
2 T cacao ground/2 T Raw Power Protein powder/ 2 t goji berries/ 1 1/2 t agave nectar/dash water

Yesterday:
4 oranges
1 large salad 2/3 avo, 1/8c pumpkin seeds
2 servings of cacao
16-20 oz sweet tea
1 carrot w/ 3-4 oz pesto
10 small dates w/ 2 T cashew butter

Day before yesterday:
1 coconut/barleymax
1 orange
4 squares of Empowered Foods raw cacao candy bar
2 servings of cacao dessert
1 large salad w/ 1/2 avo, 1/8 c pumpkin
1 serving cacao dessert
8-9 oz pesto

So I've been experimenting with cacao. I've also been staying away from crackers. They began to feel so stuck and heavy when I ate them, that I decided to try and take a break from them. I didn't want to promise myself I wouldn't eat any because that usually guarantees that I will. But I have not been tempted to eat any lately. Its been rather easy since every time I think of eating some, I remember how they've been making me feel lately. I have noticed that I need to be careful and pay attention with the dates and cashews.

I have had a little over a week off from all of my market work and I've really been enjoying not having to do ENDLESS AMOUNTS OF DISHES!!!! In fact, I went on a little hiatus from doing the dishes and I actually let them pile up quite a bit (hee hee hee)! It feels great to sneak away from dish duties for a little while:) Its been months now since I cracked open any of my raw food recipe books because I've gotten so tired of being in the kitchen lately. I'm really excited to start playing with raw food recipes again! I'm looking forward to playing with salad dressing, pesto, and cacao recipes!

I am working on a new garden bed. I hope to put in tons of basil, a good bit of purselane, a bit of arugula, and maybe some more tomatoes if its not too late! Maybe zucchini, too. And I want to give a shot at growing some cantaloupe and watermelon.

I'm looking forward to blogging about my gardening and foraging adventures!!!!!

Yours truly

Thoughts on FAT

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These photos are of my completed vegetable garden and the neighbor's cat who likes my garden almost as much as I do!
(8:17 PM)
WOW! So much is going on in my life this week it feels like! So lets begin with yesterday:
I had crazy-out-the-roof energy and feelings of excitement yesterday. I haven't been able to calm down since then. I woke up around 8 and had two or three oranges for breakfast around 11:30. Then I got in the car (ughhh) and ran some errands. I was super hungry when I got home. I fixed a large salad of mixed greens with some home grown cilantro and chickweed, 1/2 avocado, 1/8 c soaked pumpkin seeds and a garlic vinaigrette. It was so incredible that I almost immediately fixed another just like it. So I had two large super fresh super yummy salads in a row and they were awesome. I followed the salads with 2 cacao desserts. I was flying so high from all of this... I haven't really been able to come down since then:) I'm dead serious. Later on in the evening around 7 or 8 I had another salad exactly like the first two and another cacao dessert. I had trouble getting sleepy because I was so friggin energized. I went to bed around 1 AM. I woke up a bit late this morning: 10 AM. It was chilly last night so I slept inside and I think that had something to do with why I slept so late since I have been getting up closer to seven and eight this last week. I woke up with major butterflies in my stomach. The butterflies are back. Today I have eaten: 2 oranges around 11:30. Then...watch out folks...around noon I ate 200, yes 2-zero-zero garlic almonds. And I savored each and every one of those precious little kernels of tastebud-joy! And it doesn't stop there!! I was on such roll, I figured why stop? I was wanting something sweet and I had some of my candied walnuts with me so I ate somewhere in the region of 30-50 pieces of them. hee hee hee hee. And yet, after all of this fat consumption, I didn't feel badly. Full, yes, I felt full. It was not an unpleasant fullness at all, though. The whole experience was quite delightful. And I did feel like such a mischievous renegade for eating in such a fasion (wink)!!! I didn't get hungry again, but around seven I figured I needed to eat something because I don't like skipping dinner. So I fixed a large bowl of salad without avocado or pumpkin seeds, just a garlic dressing. Then I couldn't resist a cacao dessert. I've been drinking massive amounts of water since yesterday afternoon.

This is a good place for me to share a few thoughts on fat. The last few months, I have been giving myself absolute free reign to eat as much fat as I want whenever I want, even late at night. Anyone who has been keeping up with this blog has probably figured that one out already;) So, here is the thing: I really think - I don't know for sure because I don't own a scale - that I have slimmed up a little because my clothes feel looser on me. Also, I pulled out my summer clothes the other day and I was able to fit comfortably into some old size 2 shorts!!! I don't consider myself to be a size 2, I would say I am in the region of a size 4, 6, or 8. So I've been eating loads of fat lately and getting skinnier. I was thinking it might be fun to write a book How I Got Skinny Eating Fat, but I've never really been fat, so people might not take me seriously. I have had some chubbier times, though. And I have had some pretty messed up relationships with food. I've done more than my fair share of "anxiety eating", if you will.

I've been reading Matt Monarch's book Raw Spirit (which is AWESOME, by the way) and he talks about how the newer to raw you are, the more you might need to let yourself overeat raw foods. Someone who has been very raw for just a few months might need to eat more fats and heavy raw foods than somone who has been raw for a year and that same person who has been raw for a year might be eating more than someone who has been raw for five years. He talks about how that is a natural part of the process. He also describes some of his own overeating patterns, especially on the beginning of his journey. I know FULL WELL that I eat more food than my body actually needs, but I eat an amount that I mentally feel comfortable with right now and I know that slowly over time I will settle into smaller and smaller amounts of food. And to be honest, I am afraid to lose weight. I know that I am not fat at all, but I am also not rail thin. I have curves. I am "healthy looking". So even though I know that my body might run more efficiently and that it might be healthier, especially in the long run, for me to eat a little less food, part of me is still really afraid of the changes that might be (and already are) taking place in my body. Thats another reason I want to take this raw journey so slowly. I am feeling better and better about the way I look, but I am a little afraid of that. Whether my looks are actually improving or not, I really can't say, but I feel like they are. I'm not used to it. I'm used to feeling like I don't look that great: old insecurities!!!! Phooey! But, I'm afraid to look awesome. Plain and simple. So I'm goin' real slow...

Here is another observation: the veins in my hand and arm have begun to stick out more - like a man's. I don't know if it is my veins getting bigger or my skin getting tauter or what.

There is one more thing I want to share with everyone:

Last week my friend Simon and I made this video. It is a demonstration of how I've been making that coconut/barleymax drink I keep mentioning. In it, I show how I open a young coconut and use the water from it to make a delicious, detoxifying, energizing GREEN cocktail! Check it out:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4447550020631700094

In my mind, I am at the beach.... ;)

Photos: Plumeria in the Corpus Christi botanical gardens
(8:42 AM) mmmmmmmm....I love plumeria! I'm running out of recent pictures, so here are a few from a very special trip I took in the summer of '04 right after I graduated college. Yesterday I ate: 3 oranges, 1 large bowl of marinated greens w/ 1/2 avo and 1/8 c pumpkin seeds, 2 servings of cacao dessert, 5 dates w/ 1 Tbs cashew butter, 70 garlic almonds, 20 oz or so of sweet decaf green tea, 2 carrots with 3-4 oz of pesto, 8 oz of watered down choc. almond milk, and 10 dates with about 1/2 cup (maybe less, actually) cashews. This is almost what I ate day before yesterday, but I felt totally GREAT foodwise yesterday. Very energized, very elated. BM update: I love my BMs. I've never had BMs this consistently good before in my life!

Yesterday the clover were beheaded when my (very goodhearted) neighbor cut the grass:( It always makes me sad. I really like the clover flowers in the backyard. And then the bees don't have a reason to hang out except for when I am eating my colorful oranges. They get curious about my oranges. Can bees use orange juice? I have not driven my car for quite a few days now and its GRRRRREAT!!! I don't want to get back in that thing, but I will today anyway to take care of some business. I've also enjoyed sleeping outside in my sleeping bag for the last couple of nights.

I have some big news for everyone, but I cannot reveal it quite yet:) It is coming soon, though...
Stay tuned!!!

Yours truly,
Audry

Just "Beeing"

Photo: bee on a blackberry blossom
(11:36 PM) Hello! Today I ate: 2 oranges, 1 small bowl of marinated greens, 2 carrots with 4 oz or so of pesto, 15 dates with probably 3 Tbspns - maybe 4 - of cashew butter (wowie zowie, but it was good!), sweet tea, 1 cacao dessert, 60 garlic almonds, 1/2 container of leeks, and an 8 oz. glass of watered down chocolate almond milk. Sheesh, thats a lot of food! I snacked all day long. I didn't have my one big salad and I missed it. I never got a chance to work up a big appetite since I was snacking on luxurious foods all day:) I'm going to try harder to get my greens in tomorrow. I feel the difference.

To everyone who read my blog and was concerned: good news! I am smiling big smiles again;) I've been on vacation in the backyard:) No fancy activities. Just lots of time lying out in the sun. Then I went for a nice sunset bike ride. I tidied up the house a bit. Entertained a guest. I spent the night outside in a sleeping bag in the clover last night and am gonna do it again tonight. I feeling much more well-rested and I'm looking forward to tomorrow. A million wonderful things could happen tomorrow. OH! And guess what? I found out this evening that I was awarded a small grant for my small business. YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! THANK YOU, Trickle Up!!!!!

Undone

Photo: the sky
(8:57 PM) How does the saying go? The whole truth, all the truth, and nothing but the truth? I have had some profound feelings and thoughts since I blogged last (Thursday night). It is now Sunday evening. I don't quite know where to begin. I will begin with Friday. I had a nice day. I finished my big vegetable garden on Friday and it felt so good. It looks awesome. I also planted 3 big rosemary bushes along the fence.

I stayed up late again preparing for my market. I got about 4 hours of sleep. At the market all day, something didn't feel quite right. It was a slow day for me sales wise. As I was driving home, I began to have all these questions for myself: What am I doing? Why don't I feel right? Why I am I still losing sleep before my markets? Why don't I spend more time earlier in the day getting ready for my markets so that I can get to bed early and be fresh and excited in the morning? Why am I driving a car when the thought of these noxious emissions from my vehicle makes me want to cry? Why do I meet so many people and still feel very lonely at times? Why have I been spending so much time on myspace.com and eat.rawfood.com? Am I searching for something/someone, for some kind of excitement or magic or attraction or special connections with others? Sure! Why? Why do I feel like I am seeking to fill some void where something seems to be missing? Deep down I know that nothing is missing. I am life and that is the only thing that matters. But I feel like I have lost my connection with this truth. I will not go to my next market. Nothing is ready. I have abandoned my work for the time being. There is something more important to focus on right now than getting my work done for the next market. I drove home from the market Saturday afternoon and by the time I got home, I felt so clearly that my world had changed as a result of those thoughts and realizations. I didn't unload the car. I went straight to the backyard and just sat. I cried and then cried more. And then eventually I ate some food. I had plans to go to the ballet, so I tried to take a nap and get a little sleep. I didn't want to go to the ballet anymore. It seemed so trivial. I went anyway because I love my friend, the one I made the plans with, and the plans meant a lot to him. I didn't want to disappoint him. I cried during the first performance. It was so breathtaking and beautiful. It touched my heart. It was about lovers and tenderness and companionship. And two as one. Words cannot describe it.

The foods I have eaten over the last three days are more of the same. I have forgotten what I ate Friday. It seems so long ago. Saturday I had an orange, 2 oz of Italian sunflower/pumkin seeds, 60 garlic almonds, a large salad, 1 or 2 servings of cacao dessert, 8 oz. of super sweet watered down chocolate almond milk, 4 chocolate covered strawberries (a gift that I couldn't resist from Cheryl, the beautiful chocolatier) and then (since I was on such a chocolate kick and feeling pretty freaked out by my internal crisis) 4 small squares of 88% rainforest chocolate bar. This gave me painful cramps at the ballet. Bummer. Today I have had one orange, a big salad, 2 servings of cacao dessert, 8 oz of watered down choc. almond milk, 60 garlic almonds, 1 carrot with 4 oz. of pesto, sweet tea, and 10 small dates with 2 Tbs cashew butter. This last new little dessert combo was very enjoyable. My food intake is starting to seem pretty predictable. Pretty good BMs.

Today I am moving very slowly. Not surprisingly, Saturday I developed an eye infection. I think it is from my eyes being so tired from not getting enough sleep. I am only thankful I have not gotten sick from functioning under all this exhaustion. I put a few more plants in the ground and tidied up the house a bit. I feel relieved. Relieved that I have some ideas of what is wrong with this whole situation so that I can begin to address it. Relieved that I can begin to take care of some of the things that have caused me to feel so overwhelmed lately. I feel different, though. Something inside of me has changed. It does not feel wrong. It feels right. Strangely, I feel like myself again. It has been a long time since I have experienced any kind of breakdown. I know it is only me growing. Sometimes this crazy world is so hard to function in.

But no worries. I will smile like that again soon. Maybe tonight. I do love making big smiles.