Healthy Family, Healthy Community

I read a chapter today in The Intentional Family: Simple Rituals to Strengthen Family Ties about community rituals. The author, William Doherty, says that families badly need a community of extended family, friends, religious fellowships, neighborhoods, and other social organizations. In recent years observers of American society have concluded that weakening of community ties lies at the heart of family and other social ills. More and more therapists have also discovered the importance of community connections for the well-being of families: that American individualism and separateness can result in family instability. Family health and community health are interwoven. Doherty informs us that over the past several decades, "families have become increasingly more isolated from their networks of support, moving from highly interdependent farming communities to urban neighborhood communities, where people knew that names of every adult and child on their block, to suburban enclaves without sidewalks where it is rare that people know the names of neighbors three houses down the block." Gordon Neufeld agrees that the dissolution of extended family and community support have contributed to our culture of peer-oriented kids.

The idea of community gatherings and connection resonates deep inside me. The few memories I have of block parties and family gatherings from my childhood stand out clear for me. I think back with fondness to the times in high school where I met weekly with a group of adult women and girls my age. My experiences of having sleepovers with my best friend and her whole family taught me the joy of family togetherness. I enjoy my college memories of potlucks, social and religious clubs, the group of young married couples from church Matt and I met with once a week for food and sharing. Not to mention that when my appendix ruptured and I was in the hospital for a week and out of work for 3 months, our church got together and gave us money to pay our bills. Since we've had kids, though, and moved to a new town in a suburban setting, we have become more and more isolated. We are busy with work and family time, kids need to be home to for naptime and bedtime, and frankly, we have so little energy from our everyday lives that planning activities with others seems draining. Sound familiar to anyone?

I want more for myself and my children. Thankfully we do live near Matt's parents and siblings (though mine are across the country in opposite directions) but finding opportunities to be involved in our larger community has been a challenge for us. Doherty recommends making a commitment to creating community. He recommends doing service rituals like volunteering as a family or throwing a neighborhood block party, and he believes "the most widely available source of family rituals of community is a church, synagogue, or mosque." Religious communities offer weekly rituals of connection with a larger, often multi-generational, group of people; families who are members of religious institutions are more active in nonreligious groups and organizations; and religious congregations support families with marriage, parenting, divorce, death, and other important transitions. He also recommends finding a religious community that meets our needs and beliefs, that there are congregations out there flexible enough to, say, be open to homosexual parents, or other alternative communities that can be found or created.

We've been looking for a spiritual home on and off for a couple of years, and today I feel a renewed sense of purpose for settling on a church. I want my kids and family to be supported by my community, I want friends and fun, I want to get outside my box and look for community outside the internet (I imagine what my internet community must be like for my daughter: it looks like mom staring at the computer!!), I want to know my neighbors. I also am going to keep the block party idea in my mind and bring it up with some neighbors over the next months. That sounds like a really fun and healthy experience. Community, here we come!


Related links/posts:
Community Engaged Parent Education
The Intentional Family
Our Children Are Our Best Teachers
Eating Locally?

Coffee to Compost

Lately I've become a pro at taking other people's trash home to my garden-- first bags of leaves and grass clippings, and now coffee grounds! I wonder what other nutritious trash is out there waiting for me?

Did you know that coffee grounds are great for the garden?

Sustainable Enterprises tells us that every day across America, Asia and Europe, millions of pots of coffee and tea are brewed, and the millions of pounds of wet grounds, filters and bags thrown in the trash.

Coffee by-products can be used in the garden and farm as follows:

• Sprinkle used grounds around plants before rain or watering, for a slow-release nitrogen.
• Add to compost piles to increase nitrogen balance. Coffee filters and tea bags break down rapidly during composting.
• Dilute with water for a gentle, fast-acting liquid fertilizer. Use about a half-pound can of wet grounds in a five-gallon bucket of water; let sit outdoors to achieve ambient temperature.
• Mix into soil for houseplants or new vegetable beds.
• Encircle the base of the plant with a coffee and eggshell barrier to repel pests.
• If you are into vermi-posting, feed a little bit to your worms

Even Starbucks wants us to take their coffee grounds! Their website says "coffee grounds act as a green material with a carbon-nitrogen (C-N) ratio of 20-1, making an excellent addition to your compost. Combined with browns such as leaves and straw, coffee grounds generate heat and will speed up the composting process."


The non-profit organization I once worked for, MUD, has a great Coffee-to-Compost program, where volunteers bicycle around town to local coffee shops, delis, and bakeries and collect 450 pounds of coffee grounds per month for the compost bin. This program combines recycling, community partnership, gardening, and clean transportation!

Now I just need to get out of the car and get my coffee grounds by bike, which is far more challenging in the cold Montana weather with 2 little kids (I know, excuses, excuses... but how does a comfortable, wanna-be green suburbanite get motivated to bundle up the kids and run the errands by bike?)


Related links/posts:
Lasagna Gardening
Composting 101
How to Compost.org

Baked Custard and Macaroons

I've been trying to think of snacks my picky 3 year old will eat (my 12 month old will eat just about anything, as long as it's soft-- he's still got only 2 teeth). Today I made two snacks my kids might enjoy. Both recipes are from Nourishing Traditions.


Baked Custard
1 cup whole milk
1 cup heavy cream
1/4 cup honey or Rapadura (I used stevia)
5 egg yolks
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Warm milk and cream gently. Beat Rapadura (I used stevia) with egg yolks. Add milk/cream mixture to eggs, beating constantly. Blend in vanilla and pour into custard cups. Place in a pan of hot water and bake at 325 degrees for 1 hour or until a knife inserted into the center comes out clean. Chill well.


Macaroons
4 egg whites (left from custard recipe)
pinch of sea salt
2 Tbsp arrowroot
1/2 cup maple syrup
1 Tbsp vanilla extract
2 cups dried unsweetened coconut meat, finely cut

Line a baking sheet with buttered parchment paper. Beat egg whites with salt until they form stiff peaks. Beat in arrowroot, syrup and vanilla. Fold in coconut. Drop by spoonfuls onto parchment and bake at 300 degrees for 1/2 hour or until lightly browned. Reduce oven to 200 degrees and bake another hour or so until macaroons are dry and crisp Let cool and store in airtight container.


Related links/posts:
Coconut Bark recipe
Health Checklist
Kelly the Kitchen Cop Snack Ideas
Foods to Tantalize Toddlers and Preschoolers

Our Children Are Our Best Teachers

photo by

Alicia Brown photography

I am glad I am a parent, because no other experience in my life has taught me so much. Every day my children ask me, push me, to open, connect, be in my authority, play, breathe, and be mindful of the way I am being. Every day they ask me to train them, teach them, show them, love them, and accept them and myself as we are. They ask me to sacrifice my own wants and come back over and over to my purpose, which is to be their mother, nurturing, enjoying and training these children who need me. No matter how much I sometimes don't want the job, my children are there reminding me who I am, what I really want, what I am capable of.

This week I've been revisiting my parenting philosophy. My journey has included learning about and considering three different parenting styles: Michael and Debi Pearl offer a traditional Christian perspective that uses the "rod" to train children to submit, without hesitation or question, to authority; Love and Logic teaches parents to raise responsible kids using techniques like giving kids choices, setting limits, and delivering creative consequences; and Gordon Neufeld's approach is about preserving the parent-child attachment by connecting with children before directing them, coaching children through their feelings, and showing them the behavior we are desiring from them.

As I was talking with Matt about this last night, I realized that although they would disagree with one another's methods, all three parenting sects place primary importance on connection. Parents are encouraged to train and discipline with love, empathy, respect, and honor rather than anger and reactivity. In fact, all of the styles tell parents NOT to discipline when they are feeling angry, but instead to take a break to refresh themselves. Parents are taught to woo their children, become friends with them, build their trust and create lasting intimacy. Across all lines, the common ground is how we are being with our children.

Paying attention to myself, to the fears that come up when I'm confronted by the things my children do and say, to the reactivity that happens when I demand things be the way I want them to be, is a lot more challenging than any discipline technique I could deliver. Self-awareness, breath, and purposefulness on my part can foster deeper intimacy, wise choices, creative response, and real connection. A friend asked me the other day, "Are my children seeing in me what I want to see in them?"

Matt and I decided, as we solidified our purpose and made choices for how we will respond to our kids, that our first step when battle arises will be empathy-- connecting with our children by putting ourselves in their shoes. Then, from a space of love and connection, we will draw from all three of the above disciplinary techniques, choosing a course of action that seems the best response to the situation. Certain circumstances call for certain measures, others different measures, depending the context, the child, the parents, the religion, and the purpose. But the discipline is the easy part compared to the part where I have to look at myself and deal with those fears of mine; that is the real learning.


"On the other hand, if we can let go of our idea in such a moment of how things "should be," and embrace how they actually are with this child; in other words, if we can remember that we are the adult and that we can look inside ourselves at that very moment and find a way to act with some degree of wisdom and compassion, and in the best interest of our child-- then our emotional state and our choices of what to do will be very different, as will be the unfolding and resolution of that moment into the next. If we choose this path, she [the child] will have taught us something very important." Excerpt from Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting

The Future of Food

Wow, I just watched a disturbing, sad, inspiring, educational, scary, beautiful, motivating film called The Future of Food. It is about the agriculture industry's monopoly on genetically modified food production in our country and around the world, and its effects on our health, family farmers, world hunger, the environment, our children, and our choices. I am even more convinced now that eating locally and organically produced food is the way to save the "future of food" for our children.

Here is the synopsis of the film, from www.thefutureoffood.com:

There is a revolution happening in the farm fields and on the dinner tables of America -- a revolution that is transforming the very nature of the food we eat.

THE FUTURE OF FOOD offers an in-depth investigation into the disturbing truth behind the unlabeled, patented, genetically engineered foods that have quietly filled U.S. grocery store shelves for the past decade.

From the prairies of Saskatchewan, Canada to the fields of Oaxaca, Mexico, this film gives a voice to farmers whose lives and livelihoods have been negatively impacted by this new technology. The health implications, government policies and push towards globalization are all part of the reason why many people are alarmed by the introduction of genetically altered crops into our food supply.

Shot on location in the U.S., Canada and Mexico, THE FUTURE OF FOOD examines the complex web of market and political forces that are changing what we eat as huge multinational corporations seek to control the world's food system. The film also explores alternatives to large-scale industrial agriculture, placing organic and sustainable agriculture as real solutions to the farm crisis today.

Please watch the film and then let's go out and grow our own food, visit our local farmers, go to our Farmer's Markets, and really consider what we are supporting (and ingesting) with those dollars.

Eating Locally?

There is a lot of hype on the web lately about eating locally. A lot of folks (pages and pages of folks on the net) are committing to the 100 mile diet, the 100 foot diet, the Dark Days Challenge, or some other variation of the idea. There are tons of groups and bloggers (check out Life Begins at 30 for one example) going for reducing the gap between farm and table, and by doing this they support local agriculture, add to the local economy, eat healthier food, reduce consumption of pesticides, reduce their carbon footprint, become more conscious consumers, and teach our kids great lessons. I am so interested in this subject that I am reading Plenty: One Man, One Woman, and a Raucous Year of Eating Locally to find out more about what it means to eat locally and how the heck to do it. I will report on the book once I've finished it.

I think a lot about the food I am feeding my family. I buy the best quality food I can find and afford, and appreciate it when I find local sources, like my free-range eggs from a local mom (until I get my own chickens!), raw milk from a local homeschooling family, local meat from the butcher, and, of course, veggies from my garden. But I also buy a lot at the grocery store, and when I've gone there lately I've felt exhausted by the choices I have to make. What do I want vs. what can I afford? What is available for me here that is good, or at least passable, quality? Do I really need all this? What would it be like to eat with the seasons? What about all the garbage I'm creating with this packaging? What if we could save money by not getting all this? Is this really sustainable? Aren't there others around me who are growing or making this product, and how do I find them? So, I'm looking for answers to these questions, or at least to come to a place of peace with my food choices.

Is eating locally a better choice? Is it practical? I certainly think it is beneficial in many ways, but how does it work in real life? Anyone have some ideas?

I just came across the blog of someone who has done it successfully: Northwoods Locavore.

Further Reading:
Eating Better Than Organic
Eat Here: Reclaiming Homegrown Pleasures in a Global Supermarket
Animal, Vegetable, Miracle: A Year of Food Life by Barbara Kingsolver
The Omnivore's Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Mealsby Michael Pollan

The Intentional Family

The most important parenting book I have read is Gordon Neufeld's Hold On to Your Kids: Why Parents Need to Matter More Than Peers. Jan Matney at Your Child as Zen Master gives a great testimonial about Neufeld's work: "I have been deeply influenced by Gordon Neufeld's work (I took his Power To Parent course this summer with our daughter and son-in-law). I walked away from it struck by how good parenting comes from over and over, strongly attaching to our children. In other words, don't be held hostage by the latest theory on how to gain control over children, but instead gain enough wisdom and authority to deeply attach. Then our influence over them is because they respect and love us, not because we know how to manage them."

For me, the book makes sense over and over again. Neufeld talks about the biological need for kids to be in attachment relationships, the consequences of living in a culture that, for a variety of reasons, encourages children to attach to their peers rather than their parents, and the power and connection that comes when parents consciously create strong attachments with their children. Attachment facilitates parents who have natural authority that children respond to, and children who develop into mature, caring, wise, intelligent, well-developed, healthy human beings.

Neufeld offers many useful techniques for connecting with our children. Creating family rituals is one way that we can preserve and hold sacred our relationships with one another. Rituals that facilitate the parent-child relationship need to be protected, intentionally put in place and committed to. In his words, "Unless a time and place is set aside and rituals are created, pressures that are more urgent will inevitably prevail." The sit-down family dinner is can be a great opportunity to connect, as well as bedtime rituals, morning rituals, rituals for leaving and coming home, weekends, birthdays, holidays, daddy traditions, giving traditions and even couples traditions (just for mom and dad).

Matt and I have been talking and making choices about what we want our rituals to be. We've been going through the exercises in The Relationship Cure: A 5 Step Guide to Strengthening Your Marriage, Family, and Friendships that take us through different ritual ideas and ask us questions about what we want. I've also been reading two other books (I know, I'm a book junkie), New Traditions: Redefining Celebrations for Today's Family and The Intentional Family: Simple Rituals to Strengthen Family Ties, both of which have great ritual ideas.

So far, we have created a family meal ritual where we put the food out on the table, set the table, light a candle, turn down the light, say a prayer of thanks, and not get up if possible until dinner is over. We've made Saturday mornings our time for doing something together as a family, usually hiking or swimming and going out to lunch. We already have a connecting kid bedtime ritual (now we need to work on our bedtime ritual). We've decided how we want our birthday and anniversary celebrations to go, how we want to take care of sick family members, how we want to be with guests, and how we want coming-home greetings to be. We still have a lot more rituals to talk about, and we will continue to discuss it for some time. I like the process of waking up, becoming more and more intentional about how I am in my life and what my true purposes are, and I really like the idea that our kids can grow up in a loving, committed, connected family.

What are some of your family rituals? You might have intentionally set it up, or you might have just made it a habit without realizing it. You might have a memory of one from when your kids were young, one you are doing now, or one you would like to start. What are some of your favorites? Please share, and help us all generate some ideas!

Coconut Oil: Our Favorite Snack

We've been buying gallon buckets of coconut oil for the past few months after reading Eat Fat, Lose Fat by Sally Fallon and Mary Enig, and Eat Fat, Look Thin by Bruce Fife. Fallon and Fife both recommend lowering carb intake, eating a diet of nutrient-dense foods including cod liver oil, and adding 1-6 tablespoons per day of coconut oil. We started our low-carb, coconut-rich diet a few months ago.

Coconut oil is nature’s richest source of medium chain fatty acids, also called medium chain triglycerides (MCTs). MCTs are easily digested, are immediately converted into energy rather than stored as fat, raise body temperature, and increase the body's metabolism, thus producing energy and creating weight-loss. Back in the 1930’s, a dentist named Dr. Weston Price traveled throughout the South Pacific, examining traditional diets and their effect on dental and overall health. He found that those eating diets high in coconut products were healthy and trim, even with the high fat concentration in their diet.

Not only do MCTs lead to weight loss, but they have special health-giving properties as well. The most predominant MCT in coconut oil is lauric acid. Outside of a human mother’s breast milk, coconut oil is nature’s most abundant source of lauric acid. Lauric acid in both breast milk and coconut oil transforms when consumed into a substance called monolaurin, the actual compound responsible for helping to strengthen the immune system. Coconut oil is truly a healing food. Not only does it increase energy and stimulate metabolism, accelerating weight loss, but it also heals skin and hair, has antioxidant, anti-fungal, anti-bacterial, and anti-viral properties, is stable enough to resist heat-induced damage and doesn't go rancid quickly like other oils. It is cancer-fighting, promotes heart health and digestive health, boosts the immune system, increases functioning of thyroid gland, and maintains normal cholesterol levels. And the list continues. Check out The Coconut Diet for pages of info on coconut oil's myriad health benefits.

Some people swallow plain coconut oil by the spoonful (which makes me gag just thinking about it), some stir it into their tea, some add it to popcorn, smoothies or meals. Our favorite way to get it into our bodies is through coconut bark. We love it, we eat it all day long, and the kids love it. It satisfies our hunger so we don't crave carbs or eat so much, and we love knowing it is good for us.

Coconut Bark
2 cups coconut oil
1 cup butter
5 T peanut butter
Cocoa or carob powder (optional)
Vanilla and stevia to taste

Warm everything in a pan on the stove until it melts and is mixed well. Pour into a 9x13" dish and put in freezer. Once frozen, remove it from freezer and let sit on counter till warmed up enough to cut it into squares. Cut and enjoy. Keep refrigerated.

Lasagna Gardening

Today I drove around town gathering newspaper, leaves, and rabbit manure for my garden. I've been learning some cool new methods that I'm looking forward to trying out this season. I've read two books lately, The Vegetable Gardener's Bible by Edward Smith and Lasagna Gardening by Patricia Lanza.

Smith advocates wide rows and raised beds. He says that the more loose and non-compacted the soil, the healthier plants will be because their roots have room to flourish. Rather than making single rows of plants (where our feet stomp next to fragile roots), he suggests building 3 foot wide rows that are raised above the walking paths. In the rows, we can use companion planting (planting varieties of plants that naturally do well together), and we can be creative about how we plant (rather than boring single rows of the same plant, we can do interesting things like putting lettuces under corn, herbs with tomatoes, etc). Ed has lots of other beautiful and space-saving ideas, as well as info about watering, improving soil, problems, and more.

Lasagna gardening is a no-dig method of layering organic materials on top of the soil to create rich humus in a way that mimics nature (just like a forest floor that continually breaks down and adds to itself). You layer newspaper on top of grass or dirt, then alternate layers of compost, leaves, grass, straw, peat moss, or anything you can think of. Earthworms are attracted to the surface because of the dark, moist environment created by the newspapers, and they do the tilling for us. It is so simple, earth-friendly and back-friendly! The hardest part for me is finding the materials.

Soon it will be time to get out in the garden and create my wide, raised lasagna rows. For now I will continue my search for materials. I've been using my community's Freecycle group to find materials for free. If you haven't heard about Freecycle, look it up to see if there is a group in your town-- it is a group of local community members who give and get things from one another, all for FREE.

Off to build my cold frame now... well, I'll help my husband do it. ;)

Garden, Not Lawn

I've been looking through Front Yard Gardens: Growing More Than Grass by Liz Primeau, and am finding myself really interested in the idea of replacing my lawn with a garden. I've been feeling pulled to stop putting my time, energy, and money into maintaining a lawn that every year gets more unhealthy. Primeau believes that lawns are dysfunctional, impoverished ecosystems that only survive because of the attention we give them. She says that a natural, working ecosystem doesn't need human intervention. It operates on its own, adapts to its location, improves the soil, and attracts birds, insects, and worms. Heather Coburn of Food Not Lawns says that "lawns use ten times as many chemicals per acre as industrial farmland. These pesticides, fertilizers, and herbicides run off into our groundwater and evaporate into our air, causing widespread pollution and global warming, and greatly increasing our risk of cancer, heart disease, and birth defects. In addition, the pollution emitted from a power mower in just one hour is equal to the amount from a car being driven 350 miles. In fact, lawns use more equipment, labor, fuel, and agricultural toxins than industrial farming, making lawns the largest agricultural sector in the United States". Cheeseslave posted on her blog as well today about the detriment of lawns.

Primeau suggests creating a "natural garden", one that is closely tied to the terrain, climate, and native plant life of the site. This type of garden, she says, "is environmentally friendly, common-sense gardening, using plants that thrive in your garden's conditions and planting them in a design that recreates nature". It makes sense to me: native plants increase biodiversity, provide habitat for birds, bees, and butterflies, conserve water, eliminate the need for chemicals, are easy to maintain, the list goes on.

As I look outside at my lawn and ahead to another summer of watering, weeding, mowing, and weedeating, I think I'll keep reading about native plants and front yard gardens. I'm really going to need help in the landscaping department!

Do any readers have insight and/or resources about lawn, native plants, or how to replace our lawns with gardens?

Creating a Healthier Home

About 6 months ago, I came across Doris Rapp's website about keeping toxic chemicals out of our bodies and homes. Her suggestions include filtering water and air, wearing natural fibers, not using aluminum pans, not using plastic for food, replacing carpeting and mattresses, and more. I had already known that I shouldn't use toxic beauty and cleaning products, but I hadn't considered that the simple things I was doing every day-- like putting my kids to bed in their polyester feet pajamas-- could be causing us harm. I felt shocked and afraid, and started doing lots more research about the toxic chemicals in my home environment. I visited websites like PVC: The Poison Plastic, Is It In Us, and Debra Lynn Dadd. I read Home Safe Home and Our Toxic World: A Wake Up Call. The more I read, the more I felt angry with myself and driven to change everything. What a shock to suddenly find that the ways I'd been living might be dangerous! But then I remembered the truth: I am doing the best I can where I am and with what I know, I am open to learning more and moving toward better ways of living, and I am capable of making changes in a way that works for me. I am not perfect, and I don't have to be; in fact, I am OK as I am.

So I decided to make a healthier home by creatively making changes, one change at a time. We don't have much extra money, so the changes would have to be simple and inexpensive. Here is what I have done so far:

• I frequented the local thrift store and found it to be an amazing way to find lots of great things. I found sets of stainless steel, cast iron, and glass pots and pans to replace my non-stick ones; cotton sheets and wool blankets to replace my synthetic ones; a latex mattress set to replace my regular set; wooden toys to replace plastic ones; wooden furniture to replace particleboard; and even a brand new shower filter.
• I gave away our synthetic clothing, and now my kids sleep in non-flame-retardant cotton PJ's and we all wear cotton and wool. My next step down this road is finding organic clothing, but I haven't figured out how to afford it. For now we buy our natural fiber clothing at the thrift store.
• I gave away any synthetic products I could find around my home-- vinyl shower curtains, rugs, curtains-- and replaced them with cotton. I still have some synthetic items like tarps, hoses, an air mattress, rain gear, and winter coats, but I just don't know how I would find natural replacements for those kinds of things. Maybe in time I will buy or find suitable replacements. Or do I need to? I don't know.
• I disposed of all our commercial lotions and shampoos and replaced them with chemical-free ones like those at Prairieland Herbs. I use baking soda for deodorant now, although I've heard you can also use cornstarch and/or coconut oil. And there are whole communities of folks devoted to using alternative shampoos, or none at all.
• I disposed of any toxic cleaners we had, replacing them with baking soda and vinegar, homemade cleaners, and homemade laundry detergent.
• I asked for glass storage containers for Christmas, and gave away my plastic tupperware. Our plastic Nalgene water bottles were replaced with glass juice bottles from the grocery store. I also bought some stainless steel and wooden cooking utensils to replace the plastic ones, and replaced my plastic kid bowls with wooden ones.
• I bought a mattress wrap for my baby's mattress. There are all kinds of natural mattresses, wraps, covers, bedding, etc. on the internet.
• I got some houseplants, because I read that certain kinds can purify the air. I also open the windows often.
• I sealed our carpets with AFM Carpet Seal, since we can't afford to replace them with wood flooring right now.
• I bought a good quality furnace filter from the hardware store.
• I did shell out the money for a better vacuum: it is a refurbished canister vacuum with a HEPA filter.
• I purchase organic, used, recycled food and products as much as I can. I want to buy more fair-trade, locally made, recycled, and natural products in the future rather than finding things at the local box store.
• I am still looking into drinking water filters that are a reasonable price for us. Update: I just purchased a water filter from Multi-Pure.

Wow! I did all this in 6 months! I am breathing a breath of acknowledgement for me, my effort, my love of my family, my creativity, my ambition. I am glad it's mostly done, although the process of writing this has shown me the various areas I still would like to improve, as well as the choices I would like to make in the future. One day maybe we'll build our own green home (right now we live in a vinyl house like those in the great film Blue Vinyl). For now I will do the best I can with my resources and knowledge and be grateful that I can keep making conscious choices about my health, my home, my children, and the products I purchase.

My Amazon Store

I just created a store, through Amazon.com, where folks can browse through and buy some of my favorite books and things. I like being able to share some of the books that have been most profound and life-changing for me. A neat thing about the store is that Amazon brings up "Similar Items" next to the books I have listed, so we can check out even more interesting books from the same school of thought. Because of this feature, I've been looking at books on the internet all morning! Homeschooling, diet, permaculture, gardening, preserving food, getting rid of my lawn, and eating locally were some of the types of books I've been looking at today. Learning new ideas and skills is really exciting to me, especially when all my diverse interests seem to align with my purpose of nourishing. All the subjects seem different, yet they feel the same to me-- they are all leading to me a more connected, simple, conscious, healthy life that nourishes me, my family, my community, and the earth. The link to my store is at the top left of the screen if you'd like to visit in the future.

Sleep is so important

Sleeping Princess

Last night I had another night of poor sleep, which has been a struggle for me since the birth of my first child three years ago. I have decided to do a few things to battle this issue: I will go to bed at the same time every night, with enough time to wind down before lights out; I will use the relaxation exercises in The Insomnia Solution: The Natural, Drug-Free Way to a Good Night's Sleep; and I will use the techniques I have learned through the More to Life Program. The More to Life techniques are the most important in battling insomnia, because they help me let go of the fear insomnia brings up for me-- fear of being powerless, wrong, and alone-- and remember the truth about me-- that I am powerful, I can handle this, I will sleep, I am not alone, and I am OK as I am. Oh yeah, and lots of deep breaths might help me too.

Health Checklist

Bryan at Stay Healthy! Enjoy Life! Help others when you can! sums up my basic perspective on physical health with his Health Checklist. Here is what he says:

"The typical modern diet is missing important foods that kept our ancestors healthy and instead is loaded with highly processed fake foods that are low in nutrients and high in additives that are not good for health. Also, modern lifestyles are often stressful and sedentary. Together, poor diet and lifestyle choices are largely responsible for declining health and quality of life in the modern world.

What can we do to improve our health?

1) Include animal seafoods and/or organ meats and/or dairy
(from Weston A Price study of most healthful native diets)

2) Eliminate refined sugar and minimize sweets
(keep total sugars to less than 5-10% of calories)
and if overweight, minimize starchy foods as well
(keep total carbohydrates to less than 10-20% of calories)

3) Eliminate artificial trans-fats (hydrogenated oils and fats)

4) Restrict polyunsaturated fats to less than 4% of total calories
and minimize omega-6 polyunsaturated fats

5) Get at least 30 minutes of active exercise daily
(appropriate for your level of conditioning)

6) Learn to avoid and properly handle stress
(relaxation, meditation, EFT, diet, exercise)

7) Get plenty of sleep (ideally 7 to 8 hours)

8) Get plenty of sun if possible
(avoid sunscreen but be careful not to get sunburned)

9) Include cultured and fermented foods and beverages
(if tolerated)

10) Avoid exposure to harmful chemicals
(artificial food additives, pesticides, natural food toxins,
unfermented soy, drugs, poisons, health care products)

11) Avoid foods that cause noticeable adverse effects
(identify possible food intolerances)

12) Take good quality high vitamin cod liver oil daily
(if you don't get adequate sun, seafood, and liver)

13) Choose fully pastured or wild animal foods
(from a clean environment and include bone broth)

14) Use coconut oil, tallow, and/or butter for cooking

15) Include a variety of plant foods to taste and tolerance
(prepared to optimize nutrient availability,
preferably high brix organic and locally grown)

16) If dairy is consumed, use raw and cultured dairy

17) If grains and nuts are consumed, soak or sprout them

18) Eat at least half of your food uncooked

19) Minimize or eliminate factory processed/packaged fake foods
(supports 2, 3, 4, 10)

20) When eating out, avoid fried foods, dressings, and sweet foods
(supports 2, 3, 4, 10)"