Simple Raw and Natural

I bought groceries at Walmart and spent $128.59.  There are a few items that I personally will not eat, but this is for the household.  This total also included two packages of chicken strips to dehydrate for Lucy.  So far she is liking the dehydrated chicken...since she would not eat the vegetarian dog food I made we are trying the raw chicken approach.  She is eating it pretty good.  I marinated it in Yacon syrup, lemon juice, and Italian seasoning and then dehydrated it overnight. Tomorrow the Hot Springs Village Raw Food Group meets for our monthly potluck at our house.  I watched some Fully Raw Kristina videos to get some recipe ideas and decided to make Raw Vegan Tabbouleh, Vegan Ranch Dressing, Carrot Bacon, Raspberry Coconut Lemonade, and Creamy Lemon Garlic Pasta Alfredo.  Everyone is welcome to our potlucks.  Message me if you want to come.  Each person attending must bring a raw food dish to share or pay $5.00.  We may hav...

I made juices on Sunday morning.  Looks like Easter. I watched a John Kohler video yesterday about how he saves $1000 a month on his fresh produce.  Every month he drives four hours to the Los Angeles Wholesale Produce Terminal where he fills up his vehicle with boxes of fresh produce.  While that is not an option for me, there were some good ideas that make sense for getting the most out of my food dollar. My best option will be to shop at my Walmart and Food Wise, maybe start checking out Sam's club, and shopping the farmer's market.  My favorite takeaway points from the video were:  - Go through the berries or other produce when you get home and remove any that are bad or starting to go bad - Check the fruit and veggies every day - Whatever is about to go bad is what you eat that day - If more of the produce is about to go bad than you can eat today then either freeze it, juice it, or dehydrate it. The subject of biophotons is one that I want to...

This coming week is going to be busy.  We have our raw foods group at our house on Wednesday, and Wednesday afternoon I will be driving towards Houston, Texas to see my grandson, Caleb,  compete at the world robotics championship.  My son, Harris, is one of the mentor's for the team.  They will be competing for three days, but I can only be there for Thursday. It takes planning to travel and stay on point with your healthy lifestyle, but it can be done.  The point is to arrive at your destination with enough energy to enjoy yourself.  I plant to take some snacks with me, stop when I need to stretch, and to enjoy the journey as well as the destination. I will probably take some leftovers from the raw foods potluck, maybe some juices and a smoothie.  I may take some blueberries, a package of some romaine, a grapefruit, and some sunflower seeds.  My plan is to listen to an audio book, have my snacks, and think some good thoughts. This is the...

One of the principles of living your best life is to make your surroundings as beautiful as you can. We made an offer on a nice wrought iron patio set yesterday at an estate sale  We have had some cheap green plastic Adirondack chairs and a green plastic table on our lower deck for a couple of years, and they were nice and looked pretty, but every time the wind would blow they would end up out in the woods.  The last storm demolished them to the point we have one chair left.  The umbrella ended up in a tree!  The estate sale people called yesterday evening and informed us that we won the bid, so we will be going to pick up our new patio set this morning.  Our lower deck will once again be a nice place to sit and enjoy the beauty of our surroundings. A tip for a snack while traveling.  You can buy chia seeds at Walmart or your grocery store in small packs or in larger packages.  You can also buy pomegranate juice.  Put your water in a large cup, ...

Here's to a good Friday on this lovely Good Friday.  I believe we can stay on our healthy life plan and celebrate the holiday with our friends and family.  Holidays can be one of the triggers to keep us stuck in our old way of thinking and being. It takes time...and willpower and intelligence...to undo programmed thinking.  I heard Joe Dispenza speak at a conference last year where he taught on neuroscience and about how you can rewire your brain. You literally have to rewire your brain to create different results in your life.  I read his book, Breaking the Habit of Being Yourself, which tells you how to eliminate bad habits by reprogramming your thinking.  Once the brain is rewired, you develop a whole new set of references and the triggers that jerk your chain come undone.  Some habits take a long time to undo, but cooked foods may be the hardest.  There are triggers of smell and culture that have a very strong pull.  Most of us were fed co...

Yesterday I worked in the garden instead of walking around the neighborhood.  It is a different feeling. It's true that I only got in about 6500 steps by the end of the day instead of over 10,000, but it was a different feeling.  Travis planted some tomatoes and peppers, I cleaned the lower deck and pulled some weeds.  Lucy dug in the dirt and felt so happy.  I felt the same way. Working in the garden makes you feel happy and productive. I was puzzled by a plant growing in the herb garden as a weed.  I started pulling them out but decided to check if they are edible.  Edible weeds, such as dandelion,  can be used in our smoothies.  I put a picture on Facebook to ask for help identifying the weed, and the consensus is that it is plantain.  Some say edible and some say not, but I am inclined to think that it is edible.  My brother, Max, lives up in the mountains, and his neighbor says it is edible and the smallest leaves are best with...

I had an idea yesterday on how to maximize my time.  I am wanting to spend more time in my yard and garden, but there has not been enough time to get everything done. So why not use the yard and garden time as my exercise time.  Instead of walking the dog, I will try taking her out in the garden with me and let her exercise herself.  Instead of walking 3 miles around the block, I can weed and work in the yard. If you want to learn about growing things in your yard, check out Growing Your Greens on YouTube. It is John Kohler's channel.  He also has a channel called OKRaw where he talks more about the food you eat.  I have decided his channels are the best ones for me to follow right now since I want to start working in the yard instead of walking. I bought some Mallow 'Mystic Merlin' Malva Sylvestris seeds from eBay.  25 seeds.  It will be a perennial shrub with edible leaves and flowers. I have started modifying all my recipes to make them fall w...

It is good to be getting back into my routine. I don't want to be trapped into a box of programmed thinking where I am afraid to even consider ideas that are strange to me.  There is always the chance that I might learn something that will free me to live closer to reality.  But when it comes to living in harmony with Universal Law and the Laws of Nature, we are wise to make a plan and then live within the boundaries we set up for ourselves.  The only way out of the  matrix of the programming is by using our intelligence and our will power.  So we need a plan and the discipline to stick to it until we can develop a new set of references. There is always an event...a holiday...a celebration...to tempt us to conform to someone else's idea of what is best for us.  Our choice is to either make an excuse or to empower ourselves to be different and follow our plan for optimal health. My two steps forward one step back progression on my health journey has to...

I am enjoying still being on mostly liquids here at my mountaintop home.  It's been amazing, with a few ups and downs, but nevertheless, still juicy and sweet.  It's beautiful, and I am happy.   The best part is the beautiful people in my life. I took my grandson, Connor, on a birthday shopping trip last Saturday, and he said, "You know the best present is friends and family".  That sums it up, doesn't it? Juice fasting can serve more than one purpose, You can start out juice fasting because you want to lose weight or detoxify, but fasting also brings emotional issues to the surface to be dealt with. There are lessons to learn and forgiveness to experience.  Healing must take place on different levels. It truly is amazing.  You may start out to heal your body and end up healing your heart. I love to be around people that are working on themselves and trying to heal.  You want to hug them and take care of them and let them know they are safe with...

The word of the day is peace. It keeps showing up before me in the most beautiful ways.  Karl brought me a poster made by his daughter....the message was on my tea bag as I prepared my tea, and again a Facebook friend had put the symbol of peace, a dove with an olive branch, on her facebook profile page. No matter what is going on "out there", I want to keep my personal space peaceful. That is the purpose of the food and the healthy lifestyle. It is my way of creating harmony with all around me.  There is no war against animals, or viruses, or bacteria, or so-called enemies.  It's all about working on myself in order to be able to love others. This poster was created by Jessica Christy Jones from Little Rock, Arkansas. Today is the 5th day of mostly liquids. Juices and smoothies, and warm herbal teas. Traditional Medicinal makes a tea called Everyday Detox that I like. There were a few rough days, but not it is getting easier and easier.  Last night I nurtur...

My plan for the next few days is to have mostly liquids.  John Rose says at the end of every video that when you take a solid food vacation, you are in for a treat!  The time of water fasting was a little rough, with some headaches and feeling sick, but it was worth it.  I lost about five pounds, and I am feeling stronger. Being on all liquids is not really fasting, it is a juice feast.  I did a juice fast probably ten years ago for about three weeks...maybe a little longer...which healed a severe toothache, so I know the body can heal on juices. I think when I am feasting on mostly liquids, I will be getting more nutrients than most people do.  I will be having greens and proteins and fibers.  I will be using my Vitamix to blend the food. I will be using my dry brush on my body every day before I bathe, and jumping for a few minutes on my rebounder to get the circulation going. It's been amazing, and this part should be really easy.  I plan to...

It is still a resting day so read, watched raw food YouTube videos, and slept.  I did a little work that could not wait. I prepared some food and prepared six packages to ship. We have an eBay Store that we enjoy. called The Village Gypsy. I got the boxes ready and Travis took them to FedX and the Post Office.  Travis also went to Food Wise for carrots, beets, and 3 bags of oranges. Total cost $17.59.  I will be breaking my fast with orange juice. A beautiful day in Hot Springs Village. Most people want to fit it with the group, and I do, too, but have you noticed that the things about you that are different are the things that interest people.  That unique thing about you is what attracts attention. Sometimes it makes us want to repress the uniqueness because it does make us feel different. Many times we try to hide our gifts because we are afraid of rejection and loss if we are perceived as being too different, but hiding does not make us happy. Almost witho...

I am just taking it easy right now, doing the work that I have to do and resting and reading quite a bit. I have been watching my favorite raw food YouTubers...Tannyraw, JonnyJuicer, Dan the Life Regenerator, John Rose, FullyRawKristina, and Dara Dubinet.  I also watched a full length feature called One Man One Cow One Planet.  This film is about the rebuilding of the soil after it has been destroyed by chemicals, and thus restoring the family farms in India so that they can support a family. I recommend it to everyone to watch.  My favorite take away quote from the film - "Instead of fighting the problem, live the solution." When our immune systems breakdown, we are on track to develop degenerative diseases. The body produces lymphocytes that help us deal with viruses and bacteria that are present to help the body clean itself up.  Eating raw foods help build up lymphocytes that give us resistance to sickness. A raw food diet keeps us in tune and also gives us mor...

I am still going through a healing crisis.  I talked to Dr. Fielder yesterday, and he reminded me that I need to fast. I am taking his advice and fasting for a few days.  I am not going to talk about the fast much on here as it is not wise to do so.  When I was staying at the Clohesy River Health Farm back in 2011,  I did a fast and blogged about it every day. A friend then began to send me messages that I was doing the wrong thing....it was quite dangerous...I was going to die.  It ended up that Dr. Fielder decided that I should end the fast since those thought were prevalent in my mind.  Then he reminded me that the Bible says that when you fast you tell no one.  He said you can talk about it when it is over, but not when you are in it. Fasting is as much mental and spiritual as it is physical. We get our water from the hot springs in Hot Springs, Arkansas.  We have about 20 gallon bottles that we take into town and fill up with the hot water ...