Green Smoothie Experience... Day 2

So far so good darlings!
Just wanted to post this recipe real quickly-like.
Do yourself a favor and make this at once!

Royal Purple Smoothie

makes 2 qts.

5 Tbsp. shelled hempseeds
2/3 c. goji berries soaked overnight in 1 qt. water
2 T. green powder (mine was a homemade concoction of barley grass powder, spirulina, crystal manna, etc.)
1 T. honey
2 T. flax seed oil
1 lb. frozen blueberries

add to blender:
hempseeds & goji berry soaking water, reserve gojis, and blend for 1 minute

add to blender:
reserved goji berries and everything else

blend until very smooth, sometimes as long as two minutes.

Enjoy and go to antioxidant heaven.

Green Smoothie Experience... Day One

It has been almost a year since I last posted here. Many incredible things have happened, maybe too many. I intend to share them with you as we go along, but right now I just want to focus on green smoothies. I have embarked on a new adventure, my very own green smoothie experience. Green Smoothies make me feel great. I feel the best when I consume mostly/only green smoothies. My goal right now is to do 30 days of exclusively green smoothies. We will see how it goes.

Here is the recipe for my current concoction:

1 c. frozen pineapple
1 c. frozen peaches
2 frozen bananas
3 huge leaves kale
1 T. raw, local honey
1 T. coconut oil
2 T. flax meal
1 t. vanilla
1/4 t. sea salt
2 c. water

blend, blend, blend some more...

love and blessings all the time...

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.

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

Still Juicy...

I am still juice feasting though I have had a couple of challenges with it. The first challenge is that we were temporarily out of cash this week so I ended up doing more master cleanse drinks than juice and that didn't really work out too well. I would feel fine all day but by the evenings I was starving and couldn't resist the temptation of the cooked dinner that I made for the fam. I don't think that the master cleanse contains enough nutrition to keep me from feeling hungry. Green juice, on the other hand, makes me feel nourished and calm and happy. I am also a big fan of watermelon juice. There is a Jamaican guy who sells native watermelons on the side of the road right next to Lincoln's school! It is like a watermelon drive-thru! I am going to start buying them from him this week now that we have some money again... The other challenge that I have had is cooking and preparing the families cooked food. It is just torturous. The smells, the taste, the whole deal. It is like a heroin addict trying to kick his 20 year habit while preparing fixes for other junkies all day, every day. It sucks. So I have been really thinking and, honestly, praying about how I can be strong enough to resist this terrible temptation and finally heal from my lifelong crippling addiction to food. I have been over at least 100 scenarios in my mind about how I can continue to cook for my family and be successful as a juice feaster and ultimately as a raw foodist. This has been my challenge now for over two years and I am so tired of struggling with it. I really, really know in my heart that my true desire is to be healthy, vibrant, and free from constantly indulging in my addiction to cooked food. I know that living raw is my path to achieving this. I just feel that I need to be free to jump into and devote all of my energy to my chosen raw path without constantly having to go back to cooking everyday. I feel like I am trying to live in two worlds at once. It isn't fun. By last night I was ready to just give up the whole thing and throw in the towel and just try to accept a life of being fat and depressed. I was severely bummed out to say the least. Then Felix finally came home (he has been working 12 hour days for over a month straight) and I was discussing with him what he wanted for food this week as I was planning on going grocery shopping this morning. He announced that all he wants to eat is juice, smoothies, salads with avocado and raw Caesar dressing, an occasional piece of spouted bread, and some raw sweets of some sort. He said that the raw food I make is really delicious and that he has more energy when he doesn't eat any cooked food. He also admitted that he has been throwing out the cooked part of the lunches that I pack for him because he realized that he gets tired after he eats it. He said that he didn't want to tell me about throwing out the lunches because he knows how hard it is for me to constantly be dealing with cooked food when I am doing such a great job on my juice feast! HALLELUJAH!!! EUREKA!!! AMEN!!! And the best part of the whole thing is that I never even said a word to him about how I was struggling with cooking for him, etc... That means that this is a miracle, plain and simple. As far as cooking for Lincoln goes, I'm just not sure how to deal with that part yet. He already has a raw smoothie for breakfast and then I pack him a vegan/vegetarian/mostly organic lunch for school. That part is no big deal and he is very happy with his lunches even though they are different than the other kids who all eat the SAD. What to feed him for dinner is a little trickier... Right now he eats mostly grain based dinners like rice pasta and homemade sauce, rice and beans (though he usually picks out all of the beans...), pancakes, scrambled eggs and toast, veggie sandwiches on Ezekiel bread, potatoes, etc. It isn't really a big deal for me to make these foods for him usually but sometimes when I am feeling weak it is still a huge challenge. Plus, I know Lincoln would feel better if he would eat more raw, unprocessed food. Plus, he has quite the love affair with soy milk which we have to work on getting rid of... I'm just going to have to do the best I can to slowly improve his diet without him really noticing. If anyone out there has any ideas on how to do this I would love to hear your suggestions...

I am feeling pretty good health-wise. I am not going to day that I feel great because I am still very tired and often cranky but that could also be due to all the emotional stuff and stress that I have been going through. I am losing weight but am not sure how much because I have banished the scale. It makes me too mental to weigh myself because I end up obsessing over it and weighing myself constantly. I figure that it is doing more harm than good so I am avoiding it. Plus I have been having my period this week and that didn't help either...

This has definitely been a serious and challenging journey so far, but I am looking forward to see what the rest of it brings now that I am more free of my cooked food demon. I think I might be starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel and for that I am very grateful...

Sista Barbara is also still juice feasting! She is doing great and her diabetes is healing! Hip Hip Horay! She drinks mostly green vegetable juice and some various melon juices. She is also a huge fan of coconut water which is "half orgasmic" as far as she is concerned... She also has added some raw cacao and spirulina to her supplement regime for added mineralization and because it tastes good. If she is overwhelmingly hungry in the evenings she eats some lettuce or spinach with some avocado or occaionally a banana. She is losing weight very quickly and is feeling great!

Love and lightbeams with blissful frequencies to you all, you darling humans you!

I feel weird...

Still Juice Feasting. Had a temporary detour yesterday when I thought I should have a green smoothie since I was actually salivating over the pulp left in the juicer... Bad idea since one not juice thing sort of led to another... No big deal really. I'm right back at it. Watermelon juice so far today. I am feeling very unsettled, flighty, and yet really tired. It is just really strong detoxification going on and I realize that but it still feels sort of yucky. And I am even more sensitive than usual which is always extra special. I keep seeing these brilliant flashes of light, red and white. I am being led to/finding the most interesting things in my everyday life. Plus I, who am not pregnant, feel sort of like I am in childbirthing labor... I just keep reassuring myself that it is all worth it and I am really blessing myself by undergoing this process. Ummm, ok.

Here are some more garden pictures.
Hope you are all doing great. Peace and blessings!

Juice Feasting Day 10

Yesterday morning I woke up feeling really low energy and depressed. It got worse throughout the day and finally by last night I felt just awful. I also had really bad heartburn and all the food that I prepared for my family looked really appetizing. I never really thought about quitting this feast but I did want to eat something. I hadn't taken my oils or msm or bee pollen in a couple of days and was wondering if that could have has something to do with it. However, I think the real culprit was the "fresh squeezed" OJ and grapefruit juice that I had bought at a local citrus outlet. I asked the lady who was selling it if it was pasteurized and she told me no very adamantly so I believed her. I think she was wrong. I also put some honey into a few cups of hot tea and realized after that I was probably cooking the honey. I will not do that again. The moral of this juice feasters story is-
Juice it yourself because cooked sugars do not do a body good.

Here is a picture of the frangipani that is blooming so nicely in our backyard... Too bad you cannot smell it through your screen. It is just heavenly I tell ya!

A love and light big up to all of you darling beings! Peace xxoo

Juice Feasting Days 1-7

This is just a short sweet update-

I am loving this juice feast!!! Today is day seven and I already feel like a new person. Day four was a little rough emotionally and I was tired but it wasn't really that big of a deal. I haven't had many cravings and haven't had a hard time preparing food for my family either. It is much easier for me to juice feast than to try to eat 100% raw. This whole process seems very natural actually. It is like my body recognises juice as nutrition and so I really enjoy it. I have much more energy and my skin is looking much nicer. I sleep very soundly and really love drinking the juices. Plus, I have been going to the beach with Lincoln in the afternoons for swimming and a walk on the beach. The water is lovely, though sadly, not quite Caribbean...

Also, Lincoln started Montessori school last week and totally loves it. It has been a little stressful though with the new "get ready for school" routine in addition to my morning juicing session. I am actually really loving it and feeling that I have plenty of energy to get everything done.

I don't really like the taste of the MSM at all...

I'm looking forward to learning more about this whole fantastic process that I am currently undergoing.

Love and light beams to all of you darlings out there! Every single one of you!

Feasting commencing...

I have been a heavy juicer lately. At least 32 ounces per day starting first thing in the morning. I even made my way completely through an entire quart of beet greens, carrot, and friends combo that tasted exactly like mud and I even almost enjoyed it... It is like my body can't get enough, like I am finally absorbing some nutrition. I think it is really helping me. So then this morning my sista, you know, Jamaica Barbara, announces out of the clear blue that she is juice feasting. So, of course, I jumped on board and proceeded to immediately shove a huge honeydew melon and a few bunches of greens through my juicer and here I am... I don't really have any expectations for this whole process. I guess that I am just looking at it as an interesting experience and a welcome break from dealing with food all the time.

So wish us luck and send us happy juicy vibes! I'll be documenting it all here with honesty and probably some emotional d-raw-ma so stay tuned... I have a feeling that this is the part where it gets really good!

Hugs and kisses to all y'all out there! Beaming you with blessed light rays!

High Vibration Libations!

There is simply nothing like drinking fresh green juice. Lately I have been juicing more and loving it. I had previously avoided juicing too much because my juicer was really obnoxious to clean and veeerrrryyyyy slow, plus I had to cut everything into really small chunks. Boring and tedious. So I didn't really do it too much. And then the other day I got a new Hamilton Beach Big Mouth Juicer at Wal-Mart for $50. I love it. Works great and is very fast and easy to clean up. It probably doesn't get quite as much juice out as my Champion-type juicer does but it's ease of operation more than makes up for that. We have been having green juice made from cucumber, celery, kale, romaine, lemon, apple, and ginger. Big, huge, quarts of green juice. I also made a very beety concoction the other day and made myself a little bit sick to my stomach though... Juicing is definitely making me so much less hungry, and I have much more energy. It is crazy to even imagine how great all those juice feasters must feel! Maybe one day soon I will get a chance to find out...

Hope you are all doing great and feeling well! Big Love to you ALL! Peace.

this morning's hibiscus and a handful of sweeties...

High Raw and Happy!

OK, darlings... Here is an update on my rawness... I am currently eating raw all day and then having a cooked dinner. I don't really know what "%" raw that makes me and frankly, I have given up on the whole "how raw are you?" question. My only answer is raw enough for right now. You see, after I came home from Jamaica, I realized how much stress I was causing myself by playing the whole "I need to be 100% raw or else I'm a failure" game. I'm not doing it anymore. Period. I feel like the stress that I was causing myself by obsessing about my level of rawness was doing more harm than good. Now, I just naturally tend to choose to drink smoothies, juices, teas, and water in the morning and then have some sort of raw veggie dish in the afternoon. My husband and son are "raw concious" vegetarians and I cook dinner for them nightly so I usually enjoy what I cook for them as my night time meal. I really try to avoid wheat, cooked sugar, and dairy like the plague because they make me feel terrible. I thought, for a while, about stopping this blog because I didn't know if I should refer to myself as "rawmama" if I wasn't eating 100% raw. I have come to the conclusion that I am not going to stop this blog and that most raw fooders aren't 100% raw anyway. I am just going to keep doing my thing and documenting it here. I like to blog and I like my level of rawness right now. So I'm just going to keep on keeping on.

Hope you are all feeling fantastic and at peace with where you are on your journey right now. I think you are all fantastic- NO MATTER WHAT! Big love to you all and please be nice to yourselves. Okay?

Here is a picture of a particularly gorgeous papaya from our garden. Enjoy!

The Blessing of the Coconuts...

Lately, Felix has been "foraging" for coconuts... Before you all start having lovely visions of my darling Caribbean husband bushwhacking his way through the jungle and climbing up wicked tall coconut palms all Survivor-style you need to remember that we live in the "concrete jungle" of South Florida... There is no jungle here but there are plenty of coconut trees planted in the lawns of the suburban sprawl. So, for Felix, foraging now amounts to driving around local neighborhoods scoping for a prime bunch of nutties and when he finds a suitable score he knocks on the door of whoever's lawn they are growing in and asks Mr. or Ms. Homeowner, very nicely, if he can please have some. 9 out of 10 times the homeowners are overjoyed to let him have the coconuts because otherwise the nuts will likely just rot on the tree until said homeowner has to pay someone to come and "remove" them since they are so "dangerous" and have been known to fall off and dent the cars parked under them... So, due to the seemingly endless trunk loads of coconuts that have been arriving lately, we have been having one big, long, crazy, coconut party around here. Even the local neighborhood kids have figured out what we have going on and come around hoping to get a nice cool coco to drink. Most of the kids on our street are first generation American children of Bahamian immigrant parents so they are hip to the whole coconut deal and seem to especially love it when Felix whacks the top off the nuts with his very intimidating machete! I, on the other hand, close my eyes or look away when the serious chopping starts... Anyhow, I encourage all of you sub-tropical city dwellers out there to start your own coconut scavenging patrol! Note to beginners- start with short trees and wear a helmet!

Love and blessings to each and every being in the whole wide Universe and beyond!

Now I will conclude by letting y'all know what I am so happy and grateful for right about now...

I am so happy and grateful now that I am so easily able to quickly manifest into my reality:
-one of those fly new Lexus hybrids, green please...
-lovely, peaceful, and harmonious relationships
-an abundant stream of cash flowing into my bank account
-the where-with-all to pay off the mortgage on our house here in Florida

and most importantly-
-a wonderful and enjoyable exit from this lifetime for Grandpa Fred... Bless him.

I have a "gut" feeling...

I have been really under the weather lately... My whole lower abdomen has been in torment for about a week with this weird roving pain. I thought maybe it was a UTI, or IBS, or parasites, or... I have even considered going to the hospital quite a few times which says alot since we all know how I feel about the "medical establishment"... Anyhow, the last two days I have been eating more raw food, giving myself Reiki, and guess what? I know, I don't even have to tell ya... The pain is going away. I am anticipating that it will not occur at all today since I woke up feeling so much better than usual this morning. I am back in action and that is all that really matters now isn't it!

I have a recipe for you today! We have enjoyed it at least 4 times this week so I think that fact makes it a winner in my book! Only the best tried and true yumminess for you, my friends!

SWEET SESAME GINGER SMOOTHIE!

2 tbsp. raw tahini
1.5" cube of peeled ginger
4-6 medjool dates
2 tbsp. raw honey
pinch of sea salt
1 cup purified water

-blend for an eternity until reallllly smooth.
-then add in about 20-30 ice cubes and blend again.
-pour into a fancy glass and enjoy!

ps- the fancy glass makes it taste better, FYI...

They say it's my birthday!

Today, I turn 32. Finally. For some reason, for the past year I have been telling everyone that asks me how old I am that I am 32. I don't know why. Maybe I was just subconsciously very excited to turn 32. It feels like this will be a very good year for me. I am actually starting to feel like a grown-up which is kind of nice but also sort of scary. As an Aries this is supposedly very normal as we are the eternal children of the zodiac. Anyhow, thanks to everyone for all of their birthday wishes, especially the darling Connie of the Naked Food Cafe who delighted me with a birthday post first thing this morning! It feels so great to be wished well by so many lovely human beings. Awww.

I have a bunch of big plans for this year (what's new?) and feel like I worked through a bunch of emotional stuff last year and am finally ready to start this year off fresh, composed, and determined. Maturity does have it's benefits.

And now for an update on my progress using the techniques demonstrated on the TLC television series "I can make you thin" with Paul McKenna. On last weeks episode, #2 of the series, we learned about dealing with emotional eating. I was looking forward to his advice on this topic since I have been noticing some good results using the techniques he presented on the first episode. I have been eating, on average, about one third of what I used to eat before I saw the show. I have also been slowly but surely becoming more in touch with my body's hunger and fullness signals which I now know I had absolutely no concept of previously. So on the emotional eating show we learned the Callahan Technique which is a tapping technique similar to EFT but simpler. I was kind of concerned about implementing the tapping technique because when I have done EFT in the past it has really brought up some intensely disturbing emotions that I have spent years repressing. Dealing with all of these repressed emotions is simply an exhausting and very uncomfortable experience. And frankly, I am scared to deal with it. But, even though I have been a little more emotionally up and down since I started using the Callahan tapping method, I would say that it is helping quite a bit. I have been able to avoid emotional/stress overeating quite a few times by doing a round or two of tapping. That is the upside. The difficult part is that by avoiding anesthetizing myself with food I still have to deal with my overwhelming emotions which, I am realizing, is just something I am going to have to learn how to do, hopefully happily. At least the tapping technique takes the edge off and I'm all for that. In general, the Callahan technique seems a little gentler to me than EFT. I do find both ways of tapping extremely effective and would definitely recommend them to anyone who in confronted by emotional or stress overeating. I am also noticing that when I take a minute to decide what I really want to eat I am often very surprised by my choices. I am increasingly choosing more and more raw foods voluntarily! Thank Goddess! For example, this past week I have been really digging celery sticks with a creamy raw dressing/dip that I made with sunflower seeds. I even made a list of all the things I could think of that I really, truly wanted to eat and they were all raw! In general, I am just thrilled about how natural this whole experience feels and I am truly grateful that the Universe blessed me with it.

Anyhow darlings, I'm going to leave you now with blessings of health, wealth, happiness and love. Thanks for caring and big love to you all!

I am so happy an grateful now that I am easily and joyfully manifesting into my life:
-a smooth and joyful immigration processing experience for Felix and I.
-financial freedom and abundance.
-health, happiness, and harmony.
-the most beautiful and vibrant expression of life that this body can muster!
-emotional comfort, poise, and calm.
-serenity and grace.
-self confidence, presence, and highest consciousness.
-irie, irie, vibes...
-the ability to be a big time philanthropist.
-total mind/body/spirit healing.

Tag- I'm it!

I got tagged today by the lovely Mattye Lee and now I get to reveal five things about me that you don't already know. I took me all day to think of these five things because I'm such a blabber-mouth that I think I told you all just about everything there is to tell without exposing any not-so-innocent bystanders... So here we go.

1. I used to be a pretty good bowler in spite of myself. You see, my stepmother's family are big into bowling. And since she knew I hated it, I was made to bowl every Saturday morning for what seemed like an eternity, but was actually like 7 years or so... I was on a team/league and everything. It was so not my thing. But after seven years of anything, one gets good at it even if it is against their will... But, finally, when I turned 15 I got my first job, which leads us to previously unknown fact #2...

2. When I was 15, my then best friend moved away to Virginia and I racked up a $700 phone bill the first month that she was gone. So, in order for me to pay for the mega-phone bill, my Mom hired me out as an indentured servant to her best friend, Yvonne, who owned a flower shop. That was my first job and I loved it from the first minute I was there. I learned so much from Yvonne, who I now consider my second mother, that I was able to work very successfully in the flower industry for over 10 years. I was working as a floral designer when I met Felix and it was the last job I had before taking on my current job as full time Mommy.

3. I have participated in what seems to have been a miraculous healing. In the winter of 2000, me and Barbara (the one I went to Jamaica with) were at a reggae concert at Lupo's in Providence, RI. I think it was Stevie Marley... We were dancing and having a great time when these people bumped into us because they were dragging an unconscious and convulsing young man towards the door. So Barbara-on-the-spot bends down and starts giving him Reiki (we are both Reiki Masters) and I put one hand on her back and one hand up in the air and add my Reiki stream to hers. It probably only took a couple of minutes or so but seemed like hours, and suddenly the kid sits up and looks around with the most beautiful look on his face, then stands up and walks out of the club. All the people who were around us were standing in a circle looking at us like we were aliens. We were embarrassed and went outside to make sure the kid was alright but he was gone. His friend said he was having a drug overdose. It was a very profound moment in my life.

4. My favorite food is honey. I try to give it up all the time because it isn't technically vegan, but I always go back to it. I also use it to wash my face with and to put on cuts to help them heal faster. That's also why I get called Queen B, because of all the honey eating. Lincoln told me the other day that I like honey as much as Winnie the Pooh... Unfortunately I also share Winnie's aversion to calisthenics...

5. Now, this last one is kind of embarrassing and, well, it is just weird. Whenever, I am talking to someone from another country, especially a non-English speaking country, I take on this weird semi-British accent completely non-voluntarily and start speaking very clearly and enunciating like crazy. I think it started when I used to talk to my Kashmiri friend, Hanief, on the phone all the time. I think I just do it in an effort to help whomever it is that I am trying to communicate with to understand me better. I'm not sure that it helps though... My friends laugh at me and make fun of me for it which I think is mean because I truly DO NOT do it on purpose. I had to work really hard on not doing it in Jamaica especially because I didn't want to embarrass Barbara in front of her family... I think I did o.k. though, because no one laughed at me while I was talking to them... But, they could have just been trying to be nice.

So there you have it, 5 things you didn't know and probably didn't even want to know about me but...

Oh, and by the way, how do you like my new tunes? I take requests, you know...

Big blessings to everyone out there and sweet dreams!

Surfacing...

Stress just took me down. Way. Down. Under. Man, sometimes it just seems like life is too tough. But- we made it through and I am very grateful for that. It wasn't anything tragic, just a bunch of stuff piling up more quickly than I seemed to be able to deal with it. I didn't stay raw and did suffer for it, unfortunately, but the past is the past and who cares about it any way, especially because-

I'M GOING TO JAMAICA!!!

Actually, me and Lincoln are going with and courtesy of my best, craziest, and most fun friend, Barbara! I am so happy I decided to be "so happy and grateful" for it in advance. Wow, that gratitude/manifestation stuff works reallll goooooddd... We leave on February 26 and I am fast becoming overexcited! Linc just wants to make sure that he has sand toys which must include a big shovel...

Big love and plenty of blessings to you and now I'll conclude with my magic list of manifestation, seeing how it works so good, and all... xxxooo

I am so happy and grateful now that I am so quickly and easily attracting into my reality:
-a damn fine car, seriously...
-enough money so I'll never even have to think about it again for as long as I live in this body...
-enough joy to make sure that I laugh out loud for at least 90 mins. per day total
-all the time I could possibly want to spend with my loved ones
-a large, beautiful piece of tropical paradise on which to habitate and thrive
-a completely fullfilling and blissful existance
-my most healthy and beautiful body/mind/spirit