2009

Since 2009 started I have been re reading and re watching everything David Wolfe.
One of the "David Wolfe things" is writing goals. He asks you to write down 100 goals.
I believe it is in an effort to get you to push the limits of what you want to accomplish... to empty your mind of everything that you think "I could never pull that off" about.

For someone who is & has been in the middle of such life change... I think having a resolution list is silly... I am in the middle of a resolution list.. in fact this blog is a resolution list. But I have discovered the same truth as David Wolfe. When you write it down, it comes true. AND the more specific the better.

I have however, as the New Year has begun, focused on one of my resolutions on this blog. It is one that has a natural start after a holiday of almost constant eating out and honestly ending in my being sick of everything that I need to stop eating... it does make you feel bad after all. So, my main new years resolution will be on my OTHER blog. Yes, get ready for my weight to be posted again and ALL to be laid out in an effort for accountability and helping me free my life of my biggest and most hurtful addiction.

But for here...
100 Goals for 2009

1. Be free of food addiction
2. Heal my relationship with Vyk
3. Heal my relationship with Astrid
4. Enjoy my daily routine
5. Enjoy my life
6. Give of myself fully
7. Don't hold back
8. Financial Peace
9. 1,000 for emergencies that stays put
10. car paid off
11. give lots of $
12. give lots
13. Love
14. Finish the playground
15. Bring love into the children' space
16. Bring love to Ecclesia
17. Love in small ways
18. Share in large ways
19. Be beautiful
20. Feel beautiful
21. Feel sexy
22. Go on more dates with my husband
23. Go on more mother/ daughter dates
24. Be with Gus fully
25. Have strong attachments with everyone in my family
26. Vent less
27. Breathe more
28. Feel more
29. Keep my house organized
30. Keep things as simple in my home as they are now
31. Use $ to purchase fairly
32. Crave raw foods.
33. Try foods I have never tried.
34. Constantly learn about food
35. Seek God in all I do
36. Seek God in the simple things
37. Love God with all my heart, mind, soul
38. Have a deeper relationship with God
39. Be His hands and feet
40. Incarnate
41. Find my place in my new community
42. Find a friend for Astrid who is CLOSE
43. Go to Cherryhurst park all the time
44. Go to Discovery Green all the time
45. Get a 3 wheel bike to ride around
46. Soak in the sun
47. Enjoy being outside daily
48. Be active
49. Laugh often
50. Make new relationships
51. Nurture the relationships that bring me life
52. Edit time with people who do not bring me life
53. Forgive
54. Forgive
55. Forgive
56. Pray unceasingly
57. Let go of the hurt I hold in my gut
58. Detox
59. Detox emotionally
60. Let God heal... do not be afraid
61. Loose 100 lbs
62. Loose a person
63. Have skin that glows
64. Have to buy an entirely new wardrobe
65. Look on the outside as changed as I am on the inside
66. Enjoy my new home
67. Entertain more
68. Discuss more things that are important to me
69. Have more deep discussion
70. Have more girls night out with precious friends
71. Meet Leo Mueller... spend more time with the Mueller Family
72. Create annual family events
73. Be the woman that I want Astrid to learn from
74. Drink more water
75. Work on my art
76. Create a new curriculum
77. Be in a new building
78. Uncover hidden abilities
79. Spend intentional time with James
80. Share with James what he needs
81. Be good to those that I love
82. Have more lunches with Dad
83. Release Grief
84. Be the best me ever
85. Eat cleanly
86. Have green smoothies or juice daily
87. Have a salad daily
88. Buy more for myself from Etsy
89. Get my hair cut regularly
90. Have $ in the bank past my wildest expectations.
91. Give more $ than I ever thought possible
92. Finish everything
93. Get a composter
94. Start a garden
95. Grocery shop weekly
96. Eat out less
97. Have sex more
98. Heal from Gus' birth
99. Learn from and fully connect with all the children God has given me to care for
100. Have the best marriage ever!

Green Baby

OK I can not title this post "green baby" without mentioning my new favorite baby store in Houston... Bebe Verde (Green Baby) on W Alabama.
If you have not been, find an excuse to go and support a great local store.
So, now that I have plugged them with my blog title.

I wanted to talk about feeding Gus.
Gus was introduced to Greens last week and loved it and here are pics to prove it.
If you can not see the color... his little food mustache is green.

It is funny. Because before I had him I looked everywhere for a good raw baby book.
I thought... "really, why has no one made a great raw baby book?" Well, now I know.
It is such a no brainer... there is no need for a book! I mean feeding a baby raw foods is easier then anything I ever did to feed Astrid. I made my own baby food with her... and it wasn't hard... but raw makes that look like a complicated mess.

I guess the blender is the secret. Having such a high powered blender (Vitamix) does help.
But I believe 100% you could do it with any blender.

My tips have to include this... the Munchkin. It is a miracle of modern parenting. You put the raw chunks of food into a mesh pouch that shuts and baby can hold and gum til his teething hearts content. It works amazingly for avocado, banana, and apples, nectarines, peaches, pears, etc. Or for putting in frozen blended baby food which satisfies Gus' teething woos much more then any frozen plastic teether ever could.

So blending and spooning is all that feeding your baby raw involves.
I mean here are the instructions... check out how easy my mornings are...
Raw pear w/ skins and all into the Vitamix
Add a handful of spinach and a bit of water if it needs a bit of help getting going.
Blend (Gus does not like this part so I need to sooth him while the blender runs)
Spoon up into babies happy and contented mouth.
If you want to add infant cereal just spoon into whatever fruit or veg you have blended up.

Here is what I have introduced (all raw- except rice), in order of what he tried first.
Gus turned 8 mo yesterday.
Oh and Gus was very interested in food early on... so avocado play time served us well for a few months.

1. Avocado (first food)
2. Banana
3. Pear
4. Apple
5. Spinach
6. Nectarine
7. Peach
8. Brown Rice Baby Cereal (Happybellies or Earth's Best)
9. Brown Rice
10. Carrots
11. Next I will add peas (raw of course, why not!)

If I want to get fancy or if I have some extra... I spoon that into baby freezer trays vs ice cube trays (beware harmful BPA). And can pop those into the Munchkin feeder or a bowl to warm.
Freezing raw food only breaks down a small amount of the nutrients/ enzymes. So, it is much better then cooking it.

Why raw for baby?

• It is easy. Why cook?
• Easy digestion - enzymes intact it is closer to the ease of digesting breastmilk.
• Healthier intestines - which means less allergies later, less fussiness, better health.
• More nutrition - raw and organic... best there is nutritionally. Nutrient dense foods.
• Best food ever - it is food it is purest state for the purest baby in his rawest state :)

I need to ask my friend about Spirilina. I know that was her babies first food.
Next post superfoods for baby.

Dandelions

I was looking at a website of a women who is a lifestyle coach. She is a Christian and a raw foodist in the Houston area. As I read, I was amazed... she talked about dandelions.. which I had heard all about. This time I guess I saw it with new eyes.
She was talking about how dandelions have loads of vitamins and minerals and also are extremely cleansing. That they provide all of the things that our modern diet is so deficient in.
And if we would stop killing them with herb asides and instead start eating them, our community and society would be much healthier.

While I was reading, I realized that THE CREATOR is so generous... and so thoughtful and so beautiful. Really, think about it. He sees our hurt, He sees our struggle, He sees how far removed we are from what we need and what He has provided for our bodies to thrive. And so he sets out gentle reminders, then more and more gentle reminders. Until those reminders and so rampant that we would have a hard time not seeing them.

They are there for us every day as we get in our cars and set out on our days, there for us when we return home with stress pumping through us. They become annoying in their presence, annoying in their perseverance. We can not make them leave! And all the while they provide the very thing that our modern society needs. If it were more obvious it would have bitten us.
Yes, I will be adding some dandelion to my salad.
And when I thank God for the food, it will be with new meaning.

Flat Living

New Blog for a new time in my life.

My old blog was all about raw foods and as I have not been living on a raw foods diet since I got pregnant with Gus it has been silent for a while.
This blog will be about raw foods, but it is also about everything else that God has and is taking me through and asking of me...

It is about "Flat Living" which is a concept that God showed me through prayer of what He wanted my life to look like.



The picture is of a life compressed, a lifestyle flattened... so that God has a bit more room... or hopefully a lot more room. Now do not get me wrong, I am not saying that God needs me to flatten everything so that He can be big. He is big no matter what I do. What I am saying is I am being called to make my life smaller so that He can be bigger in my life, and in the life of my family.

He has been working on me towards this for such a long time. And honestly I have not listened. I have been disobedient when he asked me to shrink. I believe when I first heard this concept it was presented to me in a way that made me believe when God asks us to be smaller it is not literal... it is just a spiritual concept. And I guess... if you want the results of this process only effecting your inward life... that would be fine. BUT, I want it to effect my outward life as well as my inward one. I want God's beauty to have room to grow and push out and bloom and overtake and envelop. In fact, it is that I have no other choice then to ask Him to take over where I have been sorely deficient in life.

More on what this actually means for my life later... because it means a lot of radical change.

But generally here are the areas I see for now that need to shrink:

• Finances - No debt (Dave Ramsey)
• Body - Raw foods (David Wolfe)
• Home - Smaller, simplify what we own.
• Car - Paid for and used less.
• Community - more unified (live closer to work, school, church, where you shop).
• Food- local, organic, whole, raw, less packaging.
• Trash - less trash.
• Carbon footprint - smaller.
• Consumerism- live on less. Buy used, fair trade, hand made.
• Giving out- when everything is smaller you can give out more.
  

What is beautiful... is all of these attempts to live smaller are circles... and all of the circles run together. This is how I KNOW this is the way we are intended to live (or at least closer to) and as our circles get bigger and bigger and less and less connected we will find more stress and less balance. We are living bigger and it is harder for us physically, emotionally, spiritually. This, I believe, is God's way of letting us know that this is not what He has intended for us.

I will post on each of these independently, so stay tuned.