New Blog, Different Day

In light of many new developments in my life, I have started a new blog. I have ceased to be so obsessed about raw food but make no mistake about it, I am still a huge believer in its healing, magical powers. I have settled into a very comfortable and stress-free vegan (well, actually bee-gan) diet and am feeling very happy and contented with it. It feels good to be so unconcerned with what I'm going to eat all the time and being vegan feels very easy to me. I realized about 2 months ago that constantly trying to stay raw was really stressing me out. And that just wasn't healthy for me. So I decided to just be vegan for a while and see how I felt. The verdict is that I feel pretty great. My depression is staying away even under stressful conditions, my weight is gradually decreasing, and my family is happy with their diet, too. Plus we are finding that it is much less expensive to eat cooked vegan vs. raw vegan and that is a huge help to us financially right now. I am just allowing my body to guide me and we are taking stress-free baby steps toward my ultimate health goals. Don't worry, I will still be posting here on this blog when I have something raw-centric to express or when I make up a really good raw recipe or have any naked cooking fiascoes to to share with you...

Now, on to my new blog... You can find it at www.sisterlightheart.blogspot.com. It will be about my daily life, spirituality, parenting, music, anything that I feel like sharing with the entire world. And that is pretty much everything, as you all know...

Hope to see you all at my new blog and sending a big dose of light beam love in your direction! Peace and one love.

The dangers of naked cooking...

The other morning at about 6:30 am, as Felix was giving Lincoln his shower, I put a couple of pieces of Ezekiel bread under the broiler to toast. Then I went into my bedroom to get ready/dressed to bring Linc to school. In the middle of dressing, a.k.a. completely topless, I heard one of the pieces of toast fall through the grate and onto the bottom of the oven so I went to investigate, topless. The piece of toast had landed on the heating element on the floor of the oven, and as I reached in to retrieve it from it's impending incineration, my naked, very ample, right boobie landed on and pressed itself firmly into the unbelievably scorching hot oven door. It fried like an egg folks. Not joking, at all. I swore so loudly and for so long that I even amazed my own self. So, I have spent the past 3 days in a fog of non-adhesive wound dressings, triple anti-biotic ointment, overly adhesive (as in pull off all remaining boobie skin) medical tape, and elasticized tank tops.
Do you think someone is trying to tell me something?
Do you think it will leave a scar?
And, no, I will not post a picture of it. Even I have my limits.

I've been workin' my way back to you, babe...

OK darlings... I'm just gonna let you know that I feel like a dork blogging here when I am not eating all raw... Which just happens, you know. I definitely do not want to put myself out there as some sort of "100% successful raw foodist" poser. Ewww. But, I have decided to just get over myself and blog about my raw journey, issues and all, because my intention is always to eat raw, even if my addictions/emotional issues sometimes cause me to sabotage myself... Plus, I have noticed that writing about my challenges really helps me to process them and sometimes even helps me to release behaviors that are holding me back. So here goes, the story of my summer slide down the slippery slopes of my mountain of issues. I think I just fell completely off track during my "wanna-be-a-juice-feaster" phase which brought up every craving, addiction, and self-discipline issue that I could ever even imagine having plus a few more... Now, I'm not bashing juice feasting in any way!!! It is an amazing process with huge cleansing and restorative power. Unfortunately, it just sent me right off my rocker, which, let's face it, doesn't take much. So, after I gave up the juice feasting I just really white-knuckled it trying to resist the cravings for fried starch with sugar... Gross. Anyhow, will power, self-discipline, or whatever you want to call it, just isn't one of my greatest gifts. Needless to say, I began the lovely ping pong game of cooked (vegetarian but not always vegan) vs. raw... A game nearly as boring as watching a real ping pong game except on top of being boring it also makes you fatter, depressed and comes with a lovely feeling of self-defeat. After a while of that I was (understandably) feeling really weak and tired all the time. So I somehow convinced myself that I needed to eat more protein which led to eating eggs and even fish on about 5 occasions. I also began drinking Dunkin Donuts coffee as well. For that I can only plead retardation... I told you it's a slippery slope. Anyhow, the eggs and fish did make me feel a little more balanced and I did have a little more energy (coulda been the coffee), but I have also gained about 15-20 lbs... Ugghhh. I do have to say that I am grateful to have realized that I am the kind of person who gains weight when I eat inappropriate food for humans. Because if I didn't I would probably continue eating it until it killed me, without much concern because I would be thin anyway, seriously. The bottom line is that I get high off of cooked food. And, I have been high on it all my life. Not the easiest habit to kick. Plus, besides tasting good and being a socially acceptable addictive substance that I can get anywhere, it feels good for at least a few minutes after I eat it. However, my expanding midsection and tight clothes do not. Which brings me to where I am at right now. Experts say to replace your addiction with something that is good for you, for example, quit snorting piles of cocaine and take up jogging... I'm not sure that would work for me. I'm more apt to jog for about 5 minutes, break a sweat, and say "Fuck jogging. Snorting cocaine is so much more fun." Thank Goddess I don't have a cocaine issue. (Knocking on wood really hard) So I have decided that even though I may not be able to give up Dunkin Donuts lattes, bread, and cheese (the kind made from cow milk) for jogging, I may be able to bite the bullet and give up a cooked food high for a much healthier raw high. I know that getting high on food in general might not be considered PC in the "raw community" but I have finally made my peace with it. The bottom line is that everything we put into our bodies has an effect on how we feel. So we are all getting high on food regardless of what we eat. As an "addiction" prone person maybe the best thing I can do for myself is just to get the healthiest buzz I can manage. Maybe I can just learn to love and stop judging myself and trying to change all my "faults". So what if I like to get a good buzz on. At least my preferences in mind altering substances have improved, let me tell ya... Maybe if I can just accept that I am who I am and be happy about it I'll be OK. There is so much more to me than being fat and thin-obsessed. I'm just going to focus on doing what feels truly good and remembering that life really is one big raw-chocolate party... Maybe one day the feeling of having a healthy body will be all the high I need, but for now, it's all good. I am what I am. Peace out y'all. Big kisses and hugs. And don't forget to shake your ass today, OK?

Where the heck have I been?

Ok, so it seems I have taken the summer off from blogging... Well, I'm back now after a very introspective and revealing couple of months. As far as raw food goes, I have been bouncing between high raw, low raw, and, unfortunately, no raw, this whole time. I think that the whole juice feasting deal kind of upset my delicate equilibrium and sent me into a spin. I just don't think that I was ready for it. Anyhow, it has been a great summer of fun and household revitalization. Feng Shui to the rescue. Now that I have balanced my health area I am feeling much more motivated to get healthier. And I can't even tell you how fantastic the benefits of balancing my love/relationships area are...

Earlier this summer, I had the great experience of meeting one of my faithful readers in person, completely out of the blue! Felix and I were walking through the Swap Shop (a huge swap meet, flea market, farmers market monstrosity in Ft. Lauderdale) and a nice lady asks me "Do you have a raw food blog?" Of course, I answered "yes". Turns out, the lady's name is Samantha and she was in town to go on a Caribbean cruise with her family and we just both happened to be in the same place at the same time! Talk about synchronicity! So here is a big shout out and dose of blessings to Samantha! I hope you loved your cruise!

And now here are some pictures of our trip to the International Mango Festival in Miami...

A very nice dinner...

On Monday night we had curried coconut noodles for dinner. It was delicious. Felix the forager has been at it again... He is averaging 2-3 trunkloads of coconuts per week! I'd guess that is almost 100 per week! Sometimes they only have water in them and very little meat/jelly, but this latest batch has had tons of flesh and really sweet water. Fun!

Juice Feasting Ceasing...

I am officially done with juice feasting for now... I am so inspired to create new raw dishes and get on with living my life. I feel great and definitely feel like it was an enlightening experience to live on juice for 2 1/2 weeks. It put food into a whole new perspective for me. That is for sure. Here are some before and after pictures of my face. I'm not sure how much weight I lost but I'm guessing 10-15 lbs.

Before juice feasting- late April 2008


After juice feasting- May 25, 2008

Yes, Grasshopper...

Feeling fine today darlings, that is for sure! Life is grand! I had an epiphany yesterday and realized that sometimes I am just too uptight. I am too hard on myself and I over analyze everything. I just need to get over myself, seriously. All of this anal retentive worrying just isn't my style... So from here on out I am all about lightening up. Literally. My heavy thoughts and the attending heavy emotions are creating and enforcing the heaviness of my physical body. The ironic thing is that there is no need for it anymore. I am free to live however I choose. I am a grownup now. I am no longer under the oppressive heaviness that I experienced in my youth. I haven't actually been there in over 10 years. I was just emotionally stuck there, stuck in that perspective... I have been inadvertently reliving my past because I didn't know any better. It was all still too foggy, but when I began to live a more enlightened lifestyle the fog began to lift and I started to awaken and to remember, to get out of my own spiritual purgatory... It's actually a really cool experience (now that I am starting to understand what the hell is happening and I becoming am less afraid) And that, right there, is why I love raw food. It lifts the fog and lets us shine our true light. It lifts up our vibration and we begin to actualize our glorious human potential. The beauty and light that we begin to radiate comes from within. Raw food feeds the light and it begins to shine brighter and brighter. We begin to feel better and better and have more and more energy to... That is where I sometimes get confused. What am I supposed to do with all of this energy that I have all of a sudden? I would get all balled up and uptight because I didn't know what to do with myself. Now I do. I'm not supposed to do anything. I can do what ever I choose to do. I am free to do what ever I choose to do at the time. Isn't that fantastic? I am free. I made it. I am not "there" anymore. I am here now. It feels great.