HELLO!

I am sooooo excited! I have finally made it. I have a blog! YEAH! I’m not even sure where to start. I guess what I would want to know if I were you is what I should start with. So…I think that I should be telling you a little about why I wanted to start my blog and then a little about me.

First about why I started my blog. I believe there are 3 things in life that help make us healthy and give us the happiest and longest life possible. My goal is to share these with you over time. And to share the new tidbits of info I learn along the way.

These 3 things are:

1. live a life with low stress

2. exercise

3. eat healthy

I feel like now that I stated those I should also clarify them. Most people ( I believe) feel they have a lot of stress in their lives. I am hoping to offer what I have learned in life that helps to lower stress. And to give you the reasons why you need to lower your stress. What it does to our bodies and mind. How to change what has happened and best of all how to prevent it.
I love exercise. Do I do it as often as I should? Not at the moment. But I’m getting better at it. In fact I’m thinking about maybe doing a 3K. It would be my first ever! I’m pretty excited about the thought. It’s not anything I ever thought I would want to do. But I love my treadmill so I thought … why not! I intend to share with you what I have learned about exercise, why it’s good for you, and how to go about it.

And eating healthy? Well I do sometimes eat fish. Other than that I’m a vegetarian who eats as much raw foods as I can get in my week. Which some weeks I’m better at than others. I want to share what I have learned about eating raw. The why and the hows of it. And why I don’t beat myself up if I don’t stay completely raw.

So these are the things I want to talk about. I want to share the things I have learned in life. Which brings me to me. You probably would like to know a little more about me.

I am in my early 50’s. And I have lived a life mixed with ups/downs, excitement/sad times, good times/bad times, with $/broke, good health/sick, I have had struggles and easy times. Gee! Sound a little like yourself I bet. I guess that’s my point. I am just like you. I have learned a lot through my life. In fact I consider life my favorite class, it is where I have learned the most.

But that doesn’t really tell you much about me. So here is more…

I have a bachelors of social work, I’m a raw food chef and teacher, I’m currently working on my massage therapy license. I still would like to take a photography class someday and possibly offer coaching to the public. One of my favorite things to do is write. I’m currently working on a couple of recipe books and a sci-fi book. (A couple of recipe books because I’m working on one by myself and one with my sister Carlene and niece Michelle)

I’ll try to add in favorite recipes for you as I figure out how all this blogging works. And I promise to share with you how I do the recipes, what tools I use, and I’ll contact the companies of the tools I use and make them available to you through my blog.

My first lesson I want to share is about life.

I grew up on a farm where nearly every Sunday my dad killed a chicken for our dinner. I remember watching the chicken run around without a head. I was oddly fascinated while at the same time revolted by it. I remember feeling like I wanted the chicken to hurry up and die because I didn’t like seeing it suffer. But my dad would tell me it was okay that it was just the nerves and that the chicken was already dead. I still wonder about all that. I reached a point I could no longer even watch. It was probably the start of my not wanting to eat meat.

Then I grew up and got married. I started volunteering at a local health food co-op and wanted to stop eating meat. I was married to a man that not only hated veggies but wanted his meat over cooked.

Years passed. Life lessons learned. Info in the public changed. I and my then-spouse became vegetarians in the early 1990’s. I started dabbling in raw foods around the early 2000’s I think.
I was married to a very controlling and abusive man. (But that’s a whole different story) I experienced things in that marriage that I have never talked about to anyone. They weren’t pleasant. I went silently on complaining about the parts that I felt safe complaining about. But that is where I was in life. And all that stems from childhood issues. Lol, another story all by itself.

Anyhow… I became a divorced woman. I was a wreck at that time in my life. I was busy trying to please everyone. Trying to be what I thought others wanted me to be. That’s all I knew how to do. And during that learning experience I met a man that, through his controlling way, convinced me to eat meat. So for 3 months I broke my belief systems that I had held for years of being what I called a vegetarian, (I was eating fish so I wasn’t really) just to please someone else.

Part of me still regrets that. And a part understands it was a very important part of my learning. It was an important lesson. Some lessons are hard. That one was. But I think the harder the lesson the more we tend to learn. What did I learn? I learned what I wanted to pass on to you.

Never ever under any circumstances try to be someone you are not just to please someone else! I was miserable! It wasn’t me. It wasn’t who I wanted to be. It wasn’t anything that made me feel good.

Once you are truly yourself your world can heal.

And, thank goodness, I learned before it was too late. I moved on. Then I took time to figure out, after all those years, who I really was. What I really wanted in life. Who I wanted to be.
For the first time ever I was happy inside. And that is important.

Since that time I found the greatest man in the universe. We married August 9 of this year. And if anyone would have ever told me that this is what love could be and should be like I would have told them that they were living in a fairytale. But it’s really out there. And I believe I found it because I was finally being the real ‘me’.

To put frosting on the cake… I was never able to have children with my ex. So in my 50’s I never imagined that I would be able to have a family. But my husband, the love of my life, Bill, comes with 3 wonderful adult children who I love very much. (actually 4 because the oldest son married the girl he started dating at 16. that makes her one of the kids in my book.) And 6 marvelous grandkids who are the light in my life. I love and adore each and everyone of the 4 kids and all my grandkids. My life is full and rich.

Why am I going on and telling you all this? Because I wanted to share. I want you to know that life is good. That in these bad times~ good things happen. And by taking the time to figure out who you really are and what you really want to be and do in life is important. And that once you do this your whole world can open up.

So that’s my lesson for today.

I’ll try to add a recipe in the next couple of days. And I’ll share more insights with you.

I hope you’ll leave comments so I know how I’m being received. I hope I help someone along the way.

Please leave suggestions, questions, thoughts, and opinions.

(I’ll get pic’s up here as soon as I can)

Thanks for reading.

HAVE A GREAT DAY.