One of my favorite things to watch on the internet is videos of food preparation. Hubby and I are trying to eat mostly raw food to improve our health and I am looking for new recipes. PLEASE… if you have any favorite raw recipes (with video or not) give me a link in comments or type out the recipe if you want. I prefer simple recipes – few ingredients, common ingredients, little processing of food, looking to keep food as close to its natural state as possible and yet add variety to our diet. Am I asking too much? I guess the bottom line is salads are great but what else can I do to jazz it up a bit. We do fresh veggie juice and green smoothies. Don’t have a dehydrator YET (hopefully, this year will be the year), but I love my food processor and our blender has been serving us well but needs to be replaced with a Blendtec blender before it bites the dust. So, you’re asking about now, “What does raw food recipes have to do with dirty dishes? or did you post the wrong title on this blog?” No, stick with me, here it comes… The other day I was watching a video of a lady demonstrating a raw food recipe in her kitchen. The recipe looked good and she did a good job on the video, but the thing I noticed was… there were DIRTY DISHES in her sink… GASP!! For the whole world to see. If you’ve watched many food prep videos you know that most of them look like kitchens right out of the Better Homes and Gardens magazine or if not, at least the dishes are washed and put away. What was this lady thinking?? Well, this morning as I was preparing our morning smoothie I looked around me and what did my eyes behold? Dirty Dishes Galore!! Yes I realize that I wasn’t making a video and showing it to whoever wants to look. But as I looked at my stacked up dishes I realized that the lady on the video was just like me (in some respects anyway). If she can prepare good, fresh, raw food recipes in her kitchen, I can too! This may not mean much to you, but for me it was a “lightbulb moment,” teaching me to not expect perfection in other people and harder yet, to not expect perfection of myself. Now, if you’ll excuse me I need to go wash some dishes!

Two weeks ago I began an herbal cleanse and promised to keep you updated. Well I finished my cleanse this past weekend and it really isn’t earth-shattering. The cleanse went well, no illness, no diarhea, no constant urge to go or anything else. I just found that my morning BM’s were larger, softer, and easier. Yes, I would do it again, if we found the cleanse at a good price like we did this one. I also plan to do some colonics. We have a home colonics set-up but haven’t installed it since we moved to our new house. That is one of the next projects we need to tackle (Well, hubby is the one who will tackle it really but I can be the royal “go fer” and the extra set of hands when needed). We plan to do a liver cleanse in the near future but it was recommended to do several colonics first before the liver cleanse. Let you know how that goes as well. Bye for now…. Keep Clean!!

My husband was insulin-dependent for 6 years. One night we were surfing on the net and we looked into the ingredients in the insulin he was injecting into his body. He had been recently having pains in the kidney area and we were shocked to read that the preservative in the insulin had such side effects as Kidney Failure (among many other serious conditions). He stated “I’m not going to take another drop of this stuff” and he hasn’t. We celebrated his 1 year anniversary yesterday! It can be dangerous to make such an abrupt move, but about a year before that we experimented with a raw food diet. Nearly everything we ate for about 6 weeks was uncooked and my hubby’s blood sugar went so low that he had no need to shoot insulin. When we returned to our “normal” eating habits, the blood sugar went right back up. So, we had seen it work on a short term basis and he was ready to go long term. In the past year we have not eaten 100% raw. Sometimes we are 75-80% and other times it’s more like 25-30%. Upon waking this morning, Hubby declared that we are taking it to the next level. Although he has been insulin free, he still has some health problems he is dealing with (and so do I) and to reach optimal health levels, we are going to eat as close to 100% raw as is reasonable without boxing ourselves into it and putting labels on ourselves. For instance, our lunch today consisted of Salad; veggie tray of celery, broccoli, cauliflower, & carrots with dip; sauerkraut; and a few frito chips. We are using up what’s left of things like fritos, store-bought dressing, etc. But the majority was fresh, raw, veggies. I have a few baking potatoes so tonight we’ll have those. The idea is to use up what we bought and then not buy it again. This is definitely a new phase of our health journey and I would love to hear from others on the journey! Check out Paul and Andrea Nison’s blog (links on the right). They have been (and are) a tremendous help to me. Have a great day!

Good Morning! We have been in deep freeze mode for a few days now in Oklahoma. Thursday I woke up to… No Water?!? This was due to several factors: Overnight the “door” (piece of mobile home wall that comes out) to the hot water heater came out leaving it exposed to the frigid temps. Also, our sweet little kitty had clawed his way through the insulation of the water pipes under the mobile home. Think he had a little help from our sweet little guinea birds as I saw them pecking at some insulation yesterday. Anyway, 36 hours later, after various heat torches, heat lamps, etc. my sweet hubby (and I mean it this time) managed to get the agua flowing yesterday evening! A shower never felt so good. And I’m now in the process of doing dishes and laundry galore. After our showers last night we went and visited friends as planned. That was much more enjoyable than the housework I would have been doing otherwise. I am definitely a Morning Person, so I’m actually kind of enjoying the work this morning. HalleluYAH! We don’t appreciate things like we should untill we have to do without for a while. I’m also appreciative of being able to go next door and haul jugs of water from my mother-in-law’s house. So we weren’t totally without water just inconvenienced a little. Hope this finds you all warm and in good health. Would love to hear your winter stories wherever you are. Please comment!

I recently wrote about the herbal cleanse I began. It is going very well, nothing uncomfortable at this point. I don’t feel like I have an unusual amount of energy but I have been able to keep up better with my housework and I feel really good about that. I had been rather sluggish and it showed in my house. Now I still have a lot of decluttering to do, but I am getting the normal stuff done and slowly attacking the extra household jobs. I will update again on the physical cleansing (both me and my house) in later posts, but I wanted to share some verses from the Bible about what God says about cleaning up our hearts:

Psalm 24:3-5 Who shall ascend into the hill of the LORD? or who shall stand in his holy place? He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully. He shall receive the blessing from the LORD, and righteousness from the God of his salvation.

Psa 19:12 Who can understand his errors? cleanse thou me from secret faults.

Psa 51:2 Wash me throughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin.

Psa 119:9-11 Wherewithal shall a young man cleanse his way? by taking heed thereto according to thy word. With my whole heart have I sought thee: O let me not wander from thy commandments. Thy word have I hid in mine heart, that I might not sin against thee.

2Co 7:1 Having therefore these promises, dearly beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.

Eph 5:25-27 Husbands, love your wives, even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.

Jas 4:8 Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded.

1Jn 1:9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Psa 51:6-13 Behold, thou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom. Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit. Then will I teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.

From these scriptures (and there are many more) I glean the following:
1.We need to have a clean heart before God.
2.We are told to cleanse ourselves.
3.In order to cleanse ourselves, we must submit to God, confess our sins, and ask His forgiveness and let Him clean us.
4.When we have been cleansed we are to go and teach others the ways of God.

Just as we look daily into the mirror to make sure our face is clean, we must also look daily into the Word of God to see if our hearts are clean. I leave you with one last scripture which is a good model for our daily prayers (I don’t believe in repeating word for word day after day the same prayers over and over as God wants to hear us speak from our hearts, but we can get concepts from the prayers of others, especially in the Bible, and put them into our own words):

Psa 139:23-24 Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and know my thoughts: And see if there be any wicked way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Bundle up, here it comes! I know that this winter weather is covering just about the entire country but thought I would give you my midwestern perspective on it. Having grown up in Nebraska, I have experienced all the cold winter weather I care to. This is not what I bargained for when I moved to Oklahoma, but oh well, at least it doesn’t happen as often or stay as long. Accuweather shows us with lows down to 11 degrees later in the week but the local forecast is showing single digit readings in our near future. Been awhile since we’ve seen those. I have my accuweather homepage set up to show me conditions where my mom and siblings live. It was -2 where my sister lives in Minnesota and that sent shivers down my spine. But then I looked at the temp in Nebraska where we grew up and one brother still lives there, I thought it might be a typo. It said -13 degrees! When I went to the Omaha World Herald online it was confirmed and even worse. The main headline reads “Omaha awoke to -20.” Here’s the website where you can read the article: http://www.omaha.com/article/20100105/NEWS01/701059940

So what’s all the talk about global warming? I have known for awhile that it is all a hoax — like bird flu, swine flu, the “federal reserve,” overpopulation, and so much more. As I read the headlines I just have to laugh so I don’t start crying: “Winter Could Be Worse in 25 Years in USA,” “Seoul Buried in Heaviest Snowfall in 70 Years,” “Dozens of People Die in India Cold Wave,” and on and on… How ironic that the recent global warming conference should see significant snowfall and then as the President returns to Washington DC he was again greeted by the white stuff. Is God trying to tell us something here?!?

So, bottom line is, wherever you are right now, use common sense, keep warm as you can and please pay attention to others: your family, your neighbors (especially the elderly). Instead of taking chances running around to and fro, why not use this time with your family, getting to know each other better. What a great opportunity to reestablish the long-lost art of conversation! And that, my friends, would make for another post on another day. An area in which I myself could use some practice as well.

I started yesterday on a 14-day herbal cleanse. So far, so good. It’s very gentle and just makes elimination easier. I’ve been constipated most of my life and didn’t realize as a child, or even as a young adult, what normal bowel movements were. I thought everyone struggled with it. But now, as I’m learning that it is relatively simple to change your bowel movements by improving your lifestyle… such things as drinking more water, eating more fiberous foods and less white sugar, white flour, etc., getting plenty exercise. And I’ve also learned how vital the health of the colon is… every area of the colon affects some other organ or body part and it is essential to keep the colon clean to avoid disease. A book that I highly recommend reading is “Dr. Jensen’s Guide to Better Bowel Care” by Dr. Bernard Jensen, one of America’s foremost pioneering nutritionists. He speaks of the need for sodium, potassium, and magnesium (p.182) and then follows with a list of foods rich in sodium, foods rich in potassium, and foods rich in magnesium. I took a highlighter and marked those which are on all three lists: apples, dried apricots, beet greens, beets, dates, dulse, fish, goat’s milk, lentils, parsley, sunflower seeds, and swiss chard. I eat other foods that are just on one or two lists also, but I figure if I can consume those that have all three elements, I’ll be doing myself a big favor. Nice thing is some of these are foods I REALLY enjoy… lentils, sunflower seeds, fish. I don’t get goat’s milk as often as I’d like (hoping to have some goats of our own some day) but the only food on the list I’ve never tried in swiss chard, and I’m going to make an effort to get some soon. We juice a lot of greens so even if we don’t like it in our salad we should probably be juicing swiss chard. Anyway, back to the cleanse… I’ll report at the end of two weeks or sooner if there is anything to report. I think this will be a good kick-start for the new year, not only to restore the health of my bowel, but to lose weight and feel great! BTW, If you want to live healthy, another great resource I recommend is Paul Nison’s blog, The Raw Life Health Show. His wife Andrea now writes a blog called Our Raw Life. I check both pretty much daily and you can find links on the right side of this page. They are very knowledgeable in the area of health, and have a great sense of humor too.

I wanted to take pictures and videos outside today but I found the battery needed to be charged and also I’m having an issue with ejecting the video cassete and need to get hubby’s help with that. This afternoon I’m cooking black beans, rice, and cornbread. We’ll have a nice big salad to go with that too. We are trying to eat more raw and as you see most of my menu today is cooked. In this step of our transition however I am more concerned with knowing what’s in our food. This is all homemade and we know what is and is not in it, as opposed to cooking processed meals or eating out. I have only been married a few years and before that, sad to say, I often ate like a bachelor… Sorry guys, I know it’s not good to stereotype people… ok, I probably was worse about cooking and cleaning that some bachelors. And so as I am learning to be Susie Homemaker I am learning what does and doesn’t work for me. It is best for me, especially in this transition period of learning to eat more raw, to plan ahead. I need to make menus and plan grocery lists accordingly or my food prep will end up like my photography – postponed because something’s missing. Trouble is, picture-taking is optional and can be easily set aside for a period of time, while food prep needs to be done on a daily basis and so it can’t just be “set on the back burner.” Something else needs to take its place. As the old saying goes: Those who fail to plan, plan to fail. I’m not real big into New Year’s resolutions because any day is a great day to make changes and develop healthy habits. But it is a time of evaluation, and I didn’t do so well last year, so here we go again. I’m am using this week to prepare for 2010, like a runner stretches his muscles before the race. Think we will get to go to Whole Foods this weekend (closest one is almost 2 hrs) so I’m making a list to fit the recipes I have found so I can get some somewhat healthy ingredients to work with. Also need to order some things online such as Really Raw Almonds! Back to the kitchen, catch you on the flip side!

Well, I didn’t get those pictures taken, but I did enjoy spending the ENTIRE DAY with my husband on our 6th wedding anniversary. We had lunch at Olive Garden and ran some errands this afternoon but we did a lot of reading (I read aloud while he drives) and talking. We reminisced about “old times” and just had fun! It may not be tomorrow but one of these first days I will get some pictures/videos on here. This is short, but I’ll write more next week when hubby is working; right now I’m enjoying some together time. Yahweh bless you all!

Well, the verdict is in… Mom stays in Nebraska a few more days (which is a blessing for my brother and his family there) and Hubby and I stay at home (and hopefully we can get some projects completed around the house this weekend as well as enjoying some time together). When I headed to town (about 8 miles) yesterday afternoon, the rain was just starting to freeze and turn to ice. I cashed the paycheck and made several quick shopping stops and got home just in time. It rapidly got slicker and windier and ended up being a real blizzard. They reported 14 inches of snow at the OKC airport, an all-time Oklahoma snowfall record. Our blizzard headed north and my family in Omaha got the brunt of it last night and this morning. In my conversation with Mom today she said they are comparing this to the Blizzard of 1975. I was a Sophomore in HS at the time and I remember it well. As some of my siblings and I walked about 4 blocks to the newspaper stand to get a paper, it was like walking through a ghost town… and the last couple blocks was on a fairly major road. I remember walking down the middle of the road on the path cleared by the plows and everything was very quiet. I’m sure it was several days before they even touched the side street on which we lived. That same year Omaha experienced an F4 tornado in May. What a year it was!! Back to 2009, I’m sure this blizzard will be remembered from Texas to Minnesota and everywhere in between. As I wrote a few days ago, I want to start adding pictures and videos. Expect to see some guinea fowl soon. We got some baby birds last Spring and for their first taste of Winter weather they got this… they are freaked out to say the least. So I’ll see if I can get some pics of them to show you. Keep warm wherever you are!!