One step at a time October 23, 2012

I have a vision. It is straightforward and basic.

Beautiful Double Rainbow yesterday morning!

• It is the way I guide the health and growth of my children in the most natural and unobtrusive way.
• It is the way my family and I eat based on a nutrient dense whole foods diet.
• It is the way I face problems as they arise and handle them with grace and dignity.
• It is the decisions I make everyday.

But, the decisions I make everyday are not consistently falling into that vision. More often than not lately they have not been within range of that vision. Change is hard and in the past year my family and myself have had a lot of big life changes. Not all bad, but changes nonetheless.

My goal going forward from here is taking these changes and handling them head-on. Working each hour to fit the decisions I make everyday into the vision I have every night.

Today I took a few steps towards that vision.

1. I took a long hot bath with essential oils and epsom salt tonight.

No, this is not a picture of my bath tonight. But it is what I saw when I envisioned it!!

Since the car accident I was in this past January I have suffered from headaches, back and neck pain pretty consistently. Chiropractic care and  Massage therapy has helped a great deal. The past few weeks though I feel like I have reached a hump, my pain and headaches have improved drastically but I am still consistently feeling tightness and soreness through certain areas of my neck and back, which turns into headaches if it goes on too long.  At my last massage I was reminded again how important it is to take care of myself everyday. To take time to relax, to stretch, to concentrate on me instead of everyone else. I am going to work harder to do this each day now. After my bath I drank a glass of water with lemon in it and sat and relaxed (and blogged – which is something I enjoy!!). Let the routine begin.

2. I made an appointment with a Craniosacral Therapist for BooBoo next week.

I have always been on the bridge, between modern healthcare and traditional/alternative/holistic medicines and care. I often want to take a more holistic approach, but I am not always sure how and where to look for the right answers or the right doctor or the right whatever. This has led me to fall back on the modern medicine which is so readily available and recommended in our mainstream. I have felt for awhile that Betty has something going on. Overall her health is very good and she is thriving, but she gets irritable to a point beyond the “terrible twos” often. She sucks her thumbs obsessively, to the point she has had severe blisters that needed to be bandaged and I feared infection. And honestly ever since she had two broken bones within a few months of each other I have just been over-sensitive to everything. But, after much reading and research through other trusted bloggers and books, I called a local craniosacral therapist today and explained the basics and she said it sounded like something that could be very beneficial for BooBoo and I made an appointment. I will keep you all updated on my experience with this!

Wow, just in writing this little entry I am again reminded how much I enjoy to blog. I enjoy sharing, I look forward to feedback, and I just feel good getting it all “out.”

Please feel free to share your visions vs. your everyday life with me. Or any experiences that this brings to mind for you.

Thanks for reading and for being a part of my life.

~Jesse

Me, BooBoo & Bizz enjoying a backyard campfire!

I love a rainy night… October 21, 2012

I have always loved that song, it is one of those ones that randomly pops into my head and I will sing it for the rest of the day! Even belt it out while cooking dinner sometimes…

But.

Now I live in Humboldt County and am still adjusting to the weather. Tonight the rain is pounding and I know it will be a cold, dreary and wet day tomorrow when I wake up to get Bizz to school. I wonder how much I will love this song once I have lived through my first coastal wet winter.

Time will tell.

At least I get to bake whenever I want here and never have to worry about it being too hot.

Till next time…

~Jesse

Eck – but it’s yummy… October 25, 2011

ECK = Eggs, Cheese & Ketchup on toast or bread (think BLT, but not). Bizz (my 4 year old son) loves an ECK sandwich, so does BooBoo (my 1 year old daughter) – but hers never really stays together as a sandwich when she tries to eat it. And I am happy to feed it to them because it is super healthy – IF made with the right ingredients.

What it is NOT made with is store-bought white eggs from CAFO raised chickens, processed slices of individually wrapped cheese, Wonder bread and Heinz ketchup.

What it IS made of is Pasture Raised Organic eggs from healthy happy chickens that we purchase weekly at the farmer’s market, and we are lucky enough to visit where they come from once a month or so at Chaffin Family Farms. Raw milk cheese that I purchase through a cheese buying club at our local Weston A Price Foundation. And bread from a local bakery, Miller’s Bakehouse, that is created in the old-world fermentation style! Oh – and the ketchup is a homemade fermented recipe from the Nourishing Traditions Cookbook!

Why does it matter?

EGGS – If you have never seen them side by side (and your budget allows) go get a store bought egg and an egg from a pasture raised chicken – break them open in bowls next to each other and notice the difference. The store bought egg probably has a pale yolk and very runny white. The pasture raised egg has a bright orange and larger yolk and the white seems to stay together in a circular glob. This equates into the simple fact that pasture raised chickens have more omega-3 fatty acids, vitamins E & A and higher amounts of folic acid and B12 then their conventionally raised counterparts. And this means – they make YOU and YOUR KIDS more healthy!!!

CHEESE: Processed cheese is jut plain bad – who wants a product that has been processed, denatured and had who knows what added to it – only to be put back together in perfect little slices between sheets of plastic – Bleh, not us 😦 I much prefer cheese produced from local raw milk and guaranteed to be free from added hormones, antibiotics, gums and artificial ingredients.

BREAD & KETCHUP – While they are very different, the similarity is that conventional store-bought versions of both of these items are filled with artificial ingredients, HFCS, and a lot of words I can’t pronounce and don’t know what they even are. I like my bread to have about 4-10 ingredients that I can read and I like to make my ketchup at home.

Think of your kids favorite quick snack – fruit snacks, string cheese, goldfish, boxed mac & cheese – how can you make these unhealthy snacks turn healthy – and still be quick, convenient, frugal and most importantly more healthy for your children? I challenge you to find a solution.

Before our ECK sandwiches I admit my son ate more than a few sandwiches made with white bread, processed white american cheese and store-bought ketchup. The funny thing is – even he enjoys the new ECK sandwich better 🙂

*Side note on frugality – many of these “healthy real-food” items are MORE expensive then the conventional ones – BUT, you WILL be saving your family money in the long run because you will have healthier, happier children!!

~Jesse

*Shared on The Nourishing Gourment Pennywise Platter 10/27/2011!

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Some giveaways to share:

Headchefs Cooking Adventure Book – Sweeps4Bloggers – ends 10/25

Blanchard’s Coffee – Sweeps4Bloggers – ends 11/4

My October Absence… and a visit to the Pumpkin Farm! October 20, 2011

Well October and fall arrived….. and my blog diminished!

No particular reason, I was doing so well keeping up on 4-5 posts per week, and then I missed a few days, and a few more… and then the not writing blog posts habit must have began. They say it takes 7 days to form a habit, right? So now I will work to write a new post for the next 7 (or so) days and get back to the grind 🙂

This past weekend we visited a local pumpkin patch at TJ Farms with my husband’s parents and we had a wonderful time.

We are ready to go Mom!

I just love these little wagons they have, they are so fun!

So many pumpkins, so little time!

BooBoo was playing the drums on this one.

And Bizz found his pumpkin!

Caught this moment just before they both started looking away and wandering off!

BooBoo was having the time of her life riding while big brother pulled the wagon loaded with pumpkins!

The Pumpkin Thief strikes again…

And the whole family in the barn!

Happy Halloween

And a quick flashback… the below two pictures were taken last year (2010) at TJ Farms when hubby and I took Bizz & BooBoo!

*Sidenote – how weird is it that I wore the exact same shirt last year and this year. Didn’t even realize until I pulled up these pictures.

What are your favorite halloween traditions?

I am looking forward to hubby and Bizz carving some jack-o-lanterns and to trick-or-treating with the kids at Grampy and YaYa’s house!

~Jesse

PS – Thanks to my wonderful father in law for taking a lot of the pictures you see in this post 🙂 My camera cohort-in-action!

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And a couple blog giveaways to check out if you are interested:

Thirty-One Gifts Utility Tote Giveaway – Being Frugal & Making it Work: Ends 10/24

A Very Merry Christmas Barney DVD – Being Frugal & Making it Work: Ends 10/30