Gleefully Ready to Get Started on This Path!

You know when you get super-
excited about something and you
want to do it All Now?
Yeah.

This week has been fabulous and important!  I got the ball rolling on my dream, and I have work to do - work that I'm excited to start!

Author's Note: I probably sound crazy-pretentious in this post. I don't mean to be all braggadocious -- it's just that, for once, I'm starting on a path that really fits my wants, likes, skills, traits, etc.; that respects my innermost personal dreams; that doesn't have any holes or leave me feeling weird somewhere inside. It just fits. It makes me Excited and Happy. Also, I like exclamation points. In this post, I use them to express Happy. ;)

Starting the Journey

This past week, I expressed my desire to become a Unity Minister to the current spiritual leader of my church.

More on Who-I-Am: Running Themes Part I

Come to thing of it, I've always been
sowing The Seeds of Love,
just like Tears for Fears. Tortured,
Light-seeking seeds of Love.

*Lightbulb!*  Whoa, new idea!  Contemplating.... hmm.... yes.  Yes.  I can see it now.  Dude!!!

This is the first of at least two more blog posts reviewing some lifelong running themes -- ones that make the prospect of joining the Ministry make a lot of sense, in retrospect.  (I always was a wordy writer! ;)

A Few Minutes to Contemplate Who-I-Am

A pic that's been reposted
so many times on Facebook,
I can't offer attribution.

Good morning from your friendly neighborhood Panera Bread! I rarely have the opportunity to go out to breakfast by myself, and I even less frequently come to Panera when I do, so I'm really enjoying my time here this morning.  The sun is bright, the world is beautiful, and traffic is alright too.

I want to write a little bit about an aspect of deciding to join the Unity ministry that really, has pretty profound meaning for me.

Small Steps Lead to Big Decisions, Big Transitions: Considering the Ministry

I want to let the world know: I am seriously considering becoming a Unity minister.

In my imagination, that statement leaves people wondering "Huh?" and "Where did that come from?" because the way I've been leading my life for the past several years seems so out of alignment with that goal. Those of you who've witnessed certain aspects of my character might not be surprised. However, people who've only known me for the last few years might find it rather out-of-the-blue, because I've not been expressing all the various sides of myself for some time now.

A Very Brief Natural Body-Care Update

Very brief!

I had planned to do a lot with natural body care this summer, and to share that with you. However, all I've had time to do is stick with what was already working:

• Honey. Best face-wash EVER. I use it everyday, twice a day, and my skin is acne-free and soft. I have almost completely eliminated facial lotion from my regimen. I also use baking soda occasionally as an exfoliant per my original post.
• All-natural/organic/perfume-free Bar Soap Shampoo and White Vinegar Rinse.  It WORKS. At least, on my hair.
• Coconut oil -- in the summertime, I only need it for minor skin irritations.
• My BFF from high school got me an amazingly wonderful lip balm for my birthday: Lemon Lips by Skin. It is fabulous! I love specialty lip balms with ingredients I can mostly find around the house, or in a nearby garden.

And... that's about it!  I do have plans in the works to try out more natural products... but it will be happening more, er, organically than I'd originally intended.

Positive Thinking and Emotional Response

I've been going through a lot recently. It seems to be my pattern. Yesterday I realized, with a smile and a tear, that my life can be summed up this way:

My life is a recurring cycle of one existential crisis after another. 

 I laughed when I realized how true that is. As I've probably blogged, at least once, a long time ago: I cried myself to sleep when I was 5 because I couldn't comprehend the vastness of the Universe -- I couldn't comprehend infinity. It's not just a story my Mom tells, or a vague memory I cling to without being able to relive it in my mind.  I actually remember that night. I remember how hard I tried to comprehend Infinity, I remember the feeling of my brain pressing against my skull as I thought and thought and thought, I remember waking up in the morning and deciding it was better not to thing about it. For now.

So yes, once again, I'm having another such personal identity/meaning-of-life-type personal crisis, which seem to happen more and more frequently these days. Often, the Universe sends me messages during such times, often in the form of books/movies/other mass media outlets that throw coincidence after coincidence at me. Today, I found a blog post front-and-center on my Facebook wall.  And here it is:

The Lie About Positive Thinking

This is one of those topics that my enlightened life-partner understands, and practices, with apparent ease. Someday I'll get into the habit of it. Right now, I'm content to be slapped in the face with it. Thanks, Universe!

Help for a Nose-Rubbed-Red: Aloe Vera Gel

I have a really, really bad cold.  The kind that makes you sneeze in great fits. The kind that forces you to rub your nose, and the skin just below it, every 30 seconds. The kind that makes your top lip puff and sting from the constant irritation of tissue-contact.

A pediatrician of my daughter's swears by olive oil rubbed under the nose. Coconut oil isn't bad. I, however, vastly prefer aloe-vera gel. Dabbed on my face 50 times a day, it makes the sensitive, dry, irritated area above my lips appear practically normal. I can go out in public without being red-faced -- well, at least not from rubbing my nose, anyway. The teary, watery eyes? Well, that's what sunglasses are for, of course!

My Honey-Face is Soft as Silk: More on Natural Beauty in the Coming Months

Honey is, definitively, the best facial cleanser I have ever used.

Period.

One Honey of a Facial!: First Impressions on Honey as a Beauty Cleanser

Honey, baking soda, and a journal. Random!

As intended, this past week I started my journey of discovery for all natural, homemade beauty-care. I started shopping around for supplies and doing price comparisons on essential oils. I placed an order and will continue to accumulate supplies over time, thus spreading out the cost, until I have everything ready.

In the meantime, I got started with the one natural beauty product of which I have plenty available: Honey. I'm using Wegmans brand clover-leaf honey. Because it never spoils, we usually purchase it in the largest size we can afford at the time, which comes at the best possible price. It seems to last forever. Yes yes, I know this honey is heated and filtered and processed*. I wish it weren't so. I have to make sacrifices for my pocketbook somewhere, and commercial honey is, to me at least, less suspect than non-organic ground beef.

So, I took my honey and poured some into a baby food jar that I'd sterilized in the dishwasher. See how cute it is?

The First Big Test

Beauty-Care: Au Natural - in which I endeavor to create my own skin, body, and haircare

Skins as smooth as rose petals... because it's nourished by rose petals.
Image thanks to http://www.freecomputerdesktopwallpaper.com 

I've been watching, listening, and educating myself on natural beauty and holistic body-care for a while now.

We're surrounded by unavoidable toxins in our environment. There isn't enough green tea and dark chocolate in the world to detox the body of the average American given the chemicals we consume daily. People often thing of their skin as a kind of soft armor -- a solid barrier between the body and the outside world. Given some thought it's obvious that our body uses the skin as an instrument of detoxification, through our perspiration. In reality, our skin is a two-way street. We not only excrete through the skin, we consume. Click through to this fabulous graphic "What Your Skin Eats" on TrenchPress.

Given that "Your skin absorbs 60% of every topical thing you put on it" (TrenchPress), it seems almost irresponsible of me to purposefully rub unknown substances onto my skin. I've watched how my arms and legs soak up commercial moisturizers and unrefined oils both. I've observed how much more often the "quality" skincare products make me break out. I'm resolved to do something different about it.

Notes-To-Self: Stevia Minced Garlic and Other Random Kitchen TidBits

Here is a little collection of kitchen notes -- things I've noted in my head, that I want to remember. Some of them may prove useful to some of you too!

1. Stevia Extract
Stevia is awesome. Here are several articles sharing the whys of its awesomeness:

Leftovers "Lasagna" - Grain-free fridge-cleaning goodness!

Hmm... I gots ham, cheese, salsa...

I should have taken a picture.

No really! I had this awesome edible lunch contraption, and I fed it to my family... without taking a picture first.

Not that it would have been very pretty. It was a layered mess in a pyrex dish. But so goood! Granted, I happened to have a LOT of leftover lasagna making ingredients. I'm sure to have a different mix of ingredients next time, but cooking is an adventure, and I'll certainly riff on this same theme.

It's been a couple weeks since I made the beast-that-was-not-lasagna, using leftovers from the fridge, but I wish I'd written it down. Hence, here's what I remember of this gluten-free goodness.

It's-Not-Lasagna Layered Leftovers Bake
(for oven or microwave)

Salsa Chili - or - Salsa Saves The Day Yet Again

Salsa Chili, 2/23/12. Taken with my crap camera phone.

It's a regular occurrence in our house that I'm half way through cooking a meal and realize that I don't have all the ingredients on hand.

Oops.

Such is life for the sorta-organized, when you remember you bought those jars of tomato sauce but completely forgot about using them last night and the night before.

The vast majority of the time, however, I find a substitution of some sort and the dish comes out just fine, or better than fine. Sometimes, the mistakes are far better than the original recipes!

Such was the case this morning with my Salsa Chili (recipe below). I soaked the beans overnight, and had just finished cooking and draining them. The meat was browning up nicely in the pan. I put the crock-pot in place and started piling in ingredients, when every cook's nightmare came true. You see, I know I had some diced tomatoes, or at least some tomato sauce, lying about the cupboard. I'm sure I did.

A Mother's Lament on Resentment

"Mommy no sing!"

Readers, please note: The following is a very long, incredibly sappy, excruciatingly cry-babyish, narcissistic and melodramatic post. I'm sharing this slightly-embarrassing real-life story with you because it is such a great example of one of my personal tenets for Whole Spirit: Write Things Down, Get Them Into The Light. When we journal or write letters or just talk to somebody about the quiet issues in our lives, it has a way of clearing the path for resolution and completion around those issues. And so, I give you my saga of lament.

I wrote the following post one week ago, on February 1st, but did not publish it until now:

-----------------

Tonight I realized that it's true: I really do resent my daughter.

My New Blog is on teh Interwebs

Friends, just a quick note to let you know that my new blog is up:


...Because We're All at the Center of Infinity

Yeah, Doug Williams doesn't
belong on this blog. Unless he's a
whole foods advocate or something!

It's not quite ready for prime time, but I was inspired to write about the Super Bowl, and well, who's gonna care about that a week from now? So I threw it up there, fodder for the wolves, but so it is. *sigh!*

"Center of Infinity" will not at all be replacing this blog. In fact, often the posts on the two blogs will complement each other. However, this blog will retain my core metaphysical, waaaaay too introspective writings, plus food or recipes, health, nutrition, exercise -- anything related to whole-body-wellness. I've already got several up-and-coming posts for this page in the works. I even carry a little book around in my purse now, just for jotting notes. Yes, me hearties, hoist the main sail and curse like a pirate! There is some serious writing ahead!

...My daughter is 2 1/2. The writing drought is over. Hurray!!!

ch- ch- ch- ch- Changes!!!

Times... they are a-changin'. And believe it or not, I will soon be utilizing this blog both more often... and more smartly.

You see, I love to write. More importantly, I love to write about myself. ("Narcissist much?" Yes.) Back before I had kids and had a bit more time on my hands, my current conglomeration of blogs and socially networked memberships worked well for me. I organized my blogs, Twitter and Facebook to kinda, sorta work in conjunction, for my own benefit and that of those who wanted to keep up with some aspects of my life, but not others. And it worked.... kinda.

Today I begin to restructure my personal "brand", as it were, here on the Interwebs. Changes, they are a-comin' - changes that may effect this particular url. Currently, I plan to keep this blog (I love WholePup! I am WholePup!) but to shrink the categories of topics I post about here. I will continue to occasionally post about food, diet revolution and recipes in this space. All things health and well-being will go here, but there will be fewer personal stories to go with them. I have a new, bigger and better space for that coming.

In the meantime... I have a TON of bottled up blog posts about eating gluten-free and naturally and Community Supported Agriculture and emotional healing bottled up within me. And I will unpop that cork for you as soon as I have a spiffy new label on the bottle... very soon.

PS. If you see plenty of blank space around this post... yes I know, it's part of the process of change, images will fill those blanks soon enough. =)