Not So Virtual Armor

I've come to realize that I've been giving myself some armor lately.  It's not the kind of armor that you strap on before going into combat, but a very different kind.  Instead, I'm wearing an armor that's more spiritual in nature, but physically present with each piece I add.

The idea really came from my friend Raven.  She wears certain pieces of jewelry and considers them like her spiritual armor.  One of the ones easiest to note is her pentacle.  The other is an ankh.  She's worn these every day since I met her, and is probably still wearing them now!  I don't foresee her ever taking them off without a serious amount of convincing, or nothing short of sheer force.  I didn't really realize she was the inspiration, but looking back, there it is.  I wanted to add pieces to my earrings that would have the same meaning, but I never managed to do it.  Instead I started adding them to my hair.

It all started with a simple little charm, Kokopelli.  My friend Erin called me all frantic asking me what the meaning of a broken necklace chain was.  I explained that in my experience I'd always known a broken chain to mean that the item was no longer meant to be worn.  The fact that she still had it in her possession meant that it needed to be passed on to someone she knew.  Well, she did, and the fortune he's brought me has been interesting, to say the least.  He is my first and possibly my favorite of my little companions.  I bound him into my hair seeking fertility and abundance, and by that I mean finding a way to provide for my family.  It's not surprising that it should come in the most twisted and confusing of ways.  That is Kokopelli's nature.  He's a bit of a trickster god, like Loki.  However, I'm eternally grateful for him.  He's helped me to look at my life and see the bright side of everything, even when it seems like there is none.  He's helped me see every bad situation we've been in lately really is a blessing in disguise.  I'm looking out for his every message because he's leaving them loud and clear.  Now I just have to figure out how to listen.  It wasn't at all what I expected, no, not in the least, but I'm starting to take the hint.  We really needed a lot of these changes in our life, and while they've brought a lot of hard times, we're definitely in a better position now in many ways than we were before all this chaos began!

After Kokopelli, my son brought me his old pentacle.  We bought it for hom when he was very small and constantly ill.  I wanted to give him something to keep him safe, and at the time I was very much involved with the local Pagan community.  I'd found it at one of the local shops and it was perfect.  He wore it begrudgingly, and often times I would have to keep putting it back on him.  It did it's job well, since he was rarely sick or injured while he wore it, but eventually it just got to be too much of a hassle to find it every time he flung it off into the void, deciding he was sick of wearing it that day.  We'd found it a while ago and he wanted me to have it.  I decided to bind that into my hair for protection.  There was a lot going on in my life and it felt good to have a protection symbol bound to me to follow me wherever I go.  That pentacle has been in my family since my son was only a year old.  He wore it for two years before he lost it, then decided it needed to be on me, not him.  Not only is it a symbol of protection, but it is also a connection to my child, a very special connection, one that can't be copied by anyone else.

Shortly after that, Erin gave me another gift.  She had two matched bone daggers.  One would go in her dreads, the other would go in mine.  It's a rather large piece, so I didn't expect to have it go in my hair right away, but I decided it needed to.  It hangs a little longer than the dread it's bound to, mostly because dreads shrink up over time.  It was put in my hair to represent my connection to my dance sister, since she would some day wear hers too, but with it's constant and persistent jabs, it's also a constant reminder to be aware of things that may not serve my highest good.  After all, it's called a bone dagger, and daggers are weapons meant for offense.  While I would never use this in such a way, I think the mental association between a dagger and this thing stabbing me every time it's got something to tell me is kind of appropriate.  It has also become one of my favorite pieces, both due to it's uniqueness and due to it's persistent and demanding nature.  How could I not learn to love it?  It speaks to me (even if it isn't in the nicest of ways)!

It was a good long while before I had anything else to put in my hair.  Nothing showed up that felt like it really belonged there.  I didn't have need to add anything else.  I really wanted to have more, knowing that I wanted to have a full dowry or a pirate's booty worth of goods in my hair.  I thought it would be fun, unique, and make my hair stand out from everyone else's dreads.  Since my dreads are so thin, it's hard to find rings and beads just kicking around that will easily slip in, so I'm down to charms and baubles right now.  That's when a whole box of treasures from my past just showed up, including an old, treasured necklace and a belly chain with a broken clasp.  I wore the charm necklace for a while, but it just didn't feel right.  Something needed to change, so I decided to go a different route.  The five charms would go in my hair, as would the medallion from the belly chain.

The first charm to hit my hair was from the belly chain.  It was a medallion-like coin with a Goddess symbol on one side with the triple moon and the Green Man stamped on the other.  It just seemed to want to fall with the Green Man turned towards my dread, hidden, only to appear when needed, and the Goddess turned out to face the world.  When I bound them into my hair, I thought of them as my connection to the divine, but I think now they're something more.  The Goddess represents the outward image I need to have, the balanced Goddess of my own home and family.  I need to be the divine within myself, something I've long since forgotten about being.  The Green Man represents everything about myself that I keep hidden, and need to keep hidden.  He is that wild side to me, the incredibly natural aspect, the part that's deep and earthy.  He's the side that no one really understands because it's hidden and obscure in the wilderness, and perfectly happy and okay with being there.  He only peeks forth to show his face at times of need, and so I need to let that wild, passionate nature only poke it's head when it is time to do it's work, when I need to be that feral animal to defend my family, or to share it's wisdom.  This has perhaps the deepest meaning of anything I've had in my hair, and I've carried it since it was purchased at Unicorn Books back home over twelve years ago.  I'm pretty sure this too was a gift, but I can't remember who gifted it upon me.

The next was a horse head pendant that was gifted to me years ago.  My friend's brother found it while we were digging around the foundation to fix the damages to it when we just got out of 7th or 8th grade, I forget after all these years.  She was moving.  He found it and thought of me.  It went on my pendant which already had one other horse charm on it.  I wore that around for years.  Just recently I found it again.  I wasn't sure at first if it would go into my dreads, but I decided it needed to be there.  It would be a constant reminder that there were hidden treasures all around me, and it was bound into my hair so that I might bring more hidden treasures into my life.  Yes, you have to look a little harder to find them, and they pop up in the most unexpected places, but they're always worth it in the end.  It's also a horse, the animal that was labeled as my below from my totem reading, that which is supposed to ground me, which is interesting by a Native American standpoint from what the person doing my totems said.  It's kind of fitting that I'll end up with several in my hair when all is said and done.  Horses have meant a lot to me over the years.  They were companions for a while, and partners in the show ring.  I worked mucking out their stalls and one even broke my finger, something that never healed quite right, a constant reminder.  They're a creature that I truly miss in my life a lot more than I thought I ever would.

Next to follow was a lion, right up close to my face.  I joked that he represented Leo, since there have been so many meaningful Leos in my life, like my dad and Chesh.  It would represent their influence in my life.  I'm not entirely sure why the lion found his way to me, or who gave him to me, but I definitely remember it having some connection with strength.  Thinking deeper on it, it makes perfect sense.  Not only am I Alice in Wonderland, but a lot of people used to peg me as Dorothy in the land of Oz.  I swear, that was only the long brown hair worn in braids.  I'm not very much a Dorothy kind of gal, but I am definitely the Cowardly Lion.  I'm timid when it comes to other people and I'm afraid of virtually everything.  Maybe this lion can help me learn the same lesson as the Cowardly Lion did, that I've had the courage all along, I've just needed a reason to seek it out.  Now he's right there in my face, driving me nuts and annoying me with each day that goes by.  He tugs at the other dreads and tangles in with his legs and tail.  He's really quite the nuisance.  I have to admit, on several occasions I thought it might be better to remove him from my hair, or to wrap the dreads around him so he won't get tangled up, but I guess it's his way of constantly reminding me to pay attention to him, and he's right, I need to.  Fittingly, he's the charm that tangles in my hair all the time, right there on the dread that catches on my eyebrow ring all the time!  Maybe they were destined to be friends!

After all that I added a silly little bead.  It was from a bracelet my daughter broke years back.  I warned her it would happen if she kept stretching it out that much, and that's exactly what she did.  The bracelet pieces went into my make-up bag to be fixed later, but that ends never came about.  The pieces fell out one by one as I went from show to show and house to house.  Eventually all that remained was one green bead.  Having nothing else to do with it, I asked my daughter if I could use it, and then in it went, into my hair, a little something to remind me of my daughter.  It's meaning?  Well, a green, happy bead with a flower on it should do nothing more than draw happiness into my life!  I could always use a little more happiness and a little more brightness to my day, couldn't everyone?  It's easy to forget it's tucked back there, but when I need it, I always know just where to find it, all tucked away and safe.

The next was a big Gothic cross that I was given years ago in high school by my friend Missy.  She'd give it to me for the school play, Fortress, where I played a girl named Kim Nolan, obsessed with Superman and her best friend, a boy who lived in the funeral home.  I wore that thing everywhere, and when I finally did take it off for good, I kept telling myself it would go into my dance costume bag and it would be attached to something sooner or later.  Just the other day I pulled it out when I was unpacking.  I'd thought it was gone, disappeared in some move or another, yet here it was!  Not only is it a reminder of the past I'd had and the friends I miss, but it's also a good ward against vampires!  I know, it's not something I really need to worry about, but in a way, it is.  It's an excellent shield against those who would suck the life out of me and cast me aside.  Sure, they may not drink my blood, but they're certainly just as draining.  May this not-so-little piece ward me against those kinds of people, and people with those intents.

Currently the last piece to go into my hair is one that makes people wonder.  It's the 1st Cavalry Division shield.  This is important for many reasons.  First, it was the military that played in my marriage, my impending divorce, and the birth of my youngest child.  I never would have had the life I did now were it not for the military.  It's an occasion worth marking.  It was a gift during the first deployment we went through so  I wore it around my neck on a little black ribbon.  It's been traveling around in my make-up bag ever since.  To me, this represents all the changes that have happened in my life, and is there to help guard me against making the same mistakes again.  It connects me to all the people who have left my life, that I miss incredibly much, many of which were taken all over the country (and some of them even out of the country!) as a part of military service, or upon end of their military careers as they go home.  The list is far too long to mention here, but I love you all.  I miss you very much, and you know who you are.  Be safe, all of you!

I've got other pieces of armor that have yet to go in and I'll talk more about them later.  There's the crossed labarys, a sign of lesbianism in this modern age, but also a sign of the Amazons.  I could use a little warrior woman energy in my life.  It fittingly belongs right next to my lion for courage.  I've got an old Goddess pendant that I've been hanging on to for years and she's very special to me, all curled up in the fetal position like an infant, made of beautiful knot work, sheltered in a knot work crescent moon.  She speaks of rebirth.  Another is a horse pendent that my grandmother gave me when I couldn't have been more than eight or ten. There is another horse too, and another cross.  One charm looks very much like a Christmas ornament.  Another is a lizard with a hinged body.  There are some keys and some rings if I can ever find a way to add them.  My dreads aren't thick enough to wear a ring as a bead, even at a tiny size five or six.  Finally, there is another pentacle that Chesh used to wear as his own.  These all have their own meanings, they're all part of that which protects me and brings good things into my life.  They are my armor.  They are my amulets.  They are my shields.  Certainly I'd be just as well without them, but to me, they're physical representations of something significant, something I need to remember.

I was reading in a book about Plymouth Rock not long ago how the rock was really meaningless.  Chances are the Pilgrims or First Comers never actually set foot on the rock.  It's likely the rock was just there, a witness to it all, but often times people like a solid and tangible reminder of history.  They like to point at something and say, "There, right there!  That's where it all happened."  That's why the Plymouth Rock, in all likeliness just an unusually big rock sitting on the coastline as any other unusually large rock may want to do, ended up becoming such a landmark of significance, all bound up in honor surrounded by Greek columns, and etched with the year 1620.  That's kind of how it is with my adornments, as goes for my piercings.  A part of me wants to be able to have something physical that I can touch and say, "This!  This right here is where it comes from!  This right here was from when it happened!"  It's a physical representation of something so incredibly important.

So this is it, my virtual armor.  These are the pieces I not only use to adorn my dreads, but also for so much more purpose.  These are more than just meaningless trinkets.  They're things that have meaning to me, both in the people who gave them to me, and what they represent in my life.

Some Say It Took Long Enough...

Those of you who know me know I've always been terribly thin.  Most of my friends worry about me because of it.  A lot of my friends have commented that I look unhealthy because I'm so tiny.  For years I used to chalk that up to jealousy, but the truth is, I didn't know why I was so incredibly thin.  It's been a mystery to me.

Well, as my weight started to drop to the same dangerously low level it was at when I found out I was pregnant with my oldest, I started to think something was wrong.  It's not healthy for my weight to drop this low.  If I lose another five pounds I'm putting myself at risk for heart attacks and other health problems.  It's time to figure out what I'm doing wrong.

I set myself up with a diet tracker app on my phone.  I was kind of curious what I could find out by tracking my diet, fitness level, and all of that, so I chose My Fitness Pal.  Normally these programs are geared towards weight loss, but I think there's nothing wrong with using them for weight gain.  Pretty much anyone can sign up for a free account, search thousands of kinds of food, and track their diet.  For me, it also tells me how much extra calories I've earned every day by working out, but I would think it would work a little differently for someone trying to lose weight.  At the beginning of the process they ask you what your goals are, and you can choose fitness goals, weight gain/loss goals, etc.  Obviously I chose a weight gain goal.

Later I was kicking around on the website and noticed they have these nifty little calculators.  They tell you your BMI (which I know mine is considered unhealthy), as well as your BMR, which is your body's metabolic rate when at rest.  In other words, how many calories does your body burn just to exist each day if it did nothing but stay at rest.  As I found out, I need 1,200 calories every day for my height, weight, and age.  How much do I normally eat?  Well, let's just say less than 1,000.  It's not that I'm trying to starve myself or anything.  I honestly think I'm eating a lot more than I do.  I'm just not hungry for more than that!  Now add to that all the calories burned when I did yoga, dancing, and running around after the kids.  Obviously I'm requiring more calories than I'm consuming by a good deal.  No wonder I can't keep a steady, healthy weight!

So what has this magic program told me?  I need to be eating over 2,100 calories a day if I want to start working towards my weight gain goals.  I should probably include some yoga and strength training if I don't want all that extra weight I gain to be fat.  Even so, I've got to work on building up a healthy body weight, and I'm starting to think I just can't do it!  I can't eat that much!  It's hard not to come to 500 or more calories short!  Yesterday I was almost 900 calories short!  It feels like I've got to force feed myself a lot more than I'm used to eating.

I know some people would be jealous of me.  They wish they could be as small and tiny as I am.  They think it's easier to battle being underweight than it is to battle being overweight.  Is it?  Honestly, I don't know.  All I do know is that I'm having a terribly hard time of it.  I've got to figure out how to train my body to eat and want more food every day.  I need to do things that will encourage muscle growth so I can be putting on healthy weight, but for now, I'd just take any weight gain at all!  I need to completely overhaul my lifestyle because clearly I'm just not getting enough of what I need.

That's one thing I will say about little programs like these.  When you have to write down every little thing you eat, it gives you a realistic perspective of what you're doing to your body.  For example, I always thought I ate a lot of food, but in reality, I eat three meals each day and a couple of snacks, sure, but the portions I eat are so small that I'm not eating as much as I think I am.  I know for others I've talked to, it's been the opposite kind of eye opening experience.  They see exactly how many calories they do take in every day, and exactly how much they eat, and it helps them limit their own choices.

For me, this isn't so much about society's standards on what's considered too fat or too thin.  This is about being healthy.  So much of my life I've had people assuming I'm so incredibly healthy because I'm thin and when they see me eat, more often than not I can put away a good meal!  Of course, what they're not seeing is I'll put away one good meal each day, and then skip out on breakfast or lunch because I'm just not hungry.  A lot of people assume thin means healthy, but thin can also mean nutrient deficient.  If I really wanted to be careful about my health, I'd be taking a vitamin supplement every day to make sure I get the nutrients I need.  At this rate, from the looks of it, I would always be snacking on some kind of healthy snack too, though it may just have to be pretty constant because healthy snacks are typically low calorie snacks.  I might just become that image in the cartoon of the little animal that's always hungry and eating everything in sight...

Being healthy isn't easy.  Between choosing good foods to eat, living a healthy lifestyle, getting enough exercise, and everything else, it's a lot to manage.  It's not as simple as living your life and hoping for the best.  It makes me wonder what kind of image I'm going to be showing my kids, especially if they see that their mother's got to eat all day to maintain a healthy weight.  What if that's not healthy for them?  What if that has the effect of making them gain too much weight, and as a result, be unhealthy?  There's so much to consider and so much to think about.  For me?  I'm going to see what I can scrounge up to toss another few calories into the mix for this morning.  I want to see if I can actually stomach eating as much as I have to in order to gain the weight I need!

Dreads at (almost) Nine Months

I've been thinking a lot about my dreads lately.  They look kind of, well, shaggy and rough.  I've got whispy bits sticking out everywhere.  There are all kinds of crazy loops and bumps.  I kind of like the loops and bumbs, but I wanted my hair to be neater, and those bumps were a lot of the reason my hair was able to pull loose.  I keep hoping that sooner rather than later I'm going to have the beautiful dreads everyone says I'll some day have.  Supposedly dreads start looking pretty beautiful after they've hit the one year mark.  I'm hoping mine will do the same, but with only one month to go, I'm not so confident.  I think it's going to take longer than that, but it may have to do with my dreads being so incredibly short when I started them out.  I barely had enough hair to dread!  Thankfully, though it's been a struggle, they're finally getting there.

Having gotten sick of looking at my dreads doing crazy things, I wasn't terribly thrilled with the overall effect.  I just want my hair to start looking good.  I love my dreads and all, but I'm tired of waking up every morning to having little wisps everywhere.  It doesn't look very neat and it's only making it easier for the dreads to eat each other.  I decided it was time to break my previous pattern and do some serious maintenance.  As much as I wanted to let my dreads do their own things, something had to be done.  I've been doing some palm rolling with each shower, but it hasn't been getting me anywhere, so it was time to take it up another level.

The other day, after getting out of the bath, palm rolling, and taking a "before" picture, I decided it was time for some serious work.  I tried crocheting the dreads in front, but it didn't do anything.  I've crocheted other people's dreads before just fine, but my own?  Apparently that just can't happen.  Instead I thought I would just bind up the roots so that I could go in and crochet them later.  I started working in the front, working my way to the back where I knew it was going to be a nightmarish trouble spot.  I would have to rip apart all those dreads and I wasn't looking forward to it.

I found out early on that my hair wasn't even going to co-operate with that.  I had to bind my hair pretty much all the way down or it was just going to attempt to dread together the whole length.  I'm impressed!  My hair really wants to dread, it just doesn't want to do it the way I think it should!  Even now, with just the ends loose, my hair still tries to dread together, but it's a little more well behaved.  I bound them up pretty well through my hair.  The back was a nightmare.  It was all tangled in to each other, so it took twice as long as the rest of my hair.  I was thrilled to see the results though.  It looked fantastic!  I just hope it helps all those scrappy bits clean up so my dreads will start looking pretty good.  In a couple of months my dreads will be a year old.  I really hope that they can start looking pretty fantastic before then!

In other news, I've found the perfect way to tie my hair back to keep it out of my face, yay!  I have a fantastic bandana/scarf kind of thing that I bought at the local shop (Gaia's Garden) a year and a half ago.  It's called a MayaWear Bandana, and it's wonderful!  It can be worn as a headband or pulled back like a more traditional scarf.  It's very hippie and I love it.  Mine is a beautiful aqua color, but they've got a variety of colors from African style woven patterns to solid colors.  I wish I could buy a few more!  They're so practical for every-day wear, especially with dreads!  They're quick, easy, and convenient.  Unfortunately, they do make it a good deal easier to pop the elastics in my hair, but I suppose that's just something I'll have to live with.  I'd rather have my hair back and neat than worry about popping the elastics!

Real Friends Versus "Facebook Friends"

Just about everyone these days has a Facebook account.  Everyone knows about Facebook, the social networking site and all it's fabulousness.  It's the replacement for MySpace, which seems to have been largely forgotten over the past couple of years.  In some respects, it's the greatest thing to have happened to social networking.  It's a great way to keep in touch with friends and family, stay updated on events, and all of that.  Unfortunately, it can also become a huge time waster, and it can mean your life is public to a lot more than just the people you want it to be.

I've got to admit, I've kind of become sucked in to the Facebook generation.  My friend count has skyrocketed more times than I can count, no matter how many times I've tried to cut it back.  I honestly don't think I've ever had less than a hundred friends on Facebook since my account was new.  It's a little disturbing to think about, really.  Do I really have that many friends?

All of this started when I considered adding some moms from the co-op yesterday.  I had to think about what kind of view they'd get of my life if I added them to my Facebook.  I really wanted to.  They've become a truly influential part of my life and it would be nice to keep updated with whatever's going on with them.  It may seem like something easy, but it wasn't so much that decision that was challenging.  It got me thinking about everything connecting to my Facebook.  I put a lot out there, and there's a lot of people on friends' list that I might not want knowing that kind of information.

It was about a year and a half ago that I realized perhaps I was putting a bit much out there with my Facebook profile.  I would include updates on the divorce and things like that.  It always seemed that no matter how careful I was, friends of his would read what I wrote and inform him.  It felt like having spies on my Facebook. I wasn't free to express myself and what I was really going through.  I felt so exposed, like my privacy was no longer being respected.  I'd deleted my husband, anyone I suspected might be a "spy", and locked down my profile so only friends could access my updates.  I thought that would probably fix everything.  I would feel like I had my privacy again.

About six months ago I realized that a lot of my friends were a part of the dance community.  Being a belly dancer, this shouldn't be surprising.  I wanted to stay connected, but I felt like I couldn't have my privacy again.  I don't want to talk about my divorce with the dance community.  I don't want to bog them down with pictures of my kids.  I don't want them knowing private details of my life, not that I'm posting much that's private on my Facebook, but they're just not that kind of friends, you know?  I created a dance profile specifically for that and moved most of my dance contacts over to that instead.  Only a handful remained on my profile.  I felt much more comfortable with my own privacy knowing I could keep some details of my life out of "public view" only to choose who I wanted to share with instead, my own personal social circle.

Still, my friend list was massive, and grew.  As of this morning I had a total of 175 friends on my list.  How many of them can I possibly know?  How many of them are really my friends?  How many care to read my updates, view my pictures, or anything else.  How many of them do I skim over when I'm reading my news feed because it's just the eight millionth game announcement or request or they simply don't say anything I'm interested in?  How many of them say things that challenge my views, get under my skin, and make me want to start a debate when perhaps it's better to keep my mouth shut?  And are all these people really the kinds of people I want seeing pictures of my kids, hearing about my life, and in general being up to date on my goings on?  Is this really something I should be comfortable with?  And of those friends, how many of them would really be there if I needed a shoulder to cry on, friendly advice, or someone to listen as I vent my frustration?  How many of them would I be there for?

Cutting back the first 75 friends wasn't too terribly hard.  There were a lot of people on there I was involved with through dance or other things that really aren't involved in my life.  There were a number of people from my high school that I just don't care to stay in touch with.  There were a handful of people from the local Pagan group that I never talk to anymore.  Those were easy to cut out.  In general if there's been no contact between the two of us for over a year or I really don't know you that well, then it's pretty easy for you to be gone.  There were plenty of people I figured I can always add later, or I'll see them around.

Then things started getting harder.  There's something about holding on to the past that seems like it's such a great idea.  It's not easy to let go of the crowd from the old game group.  I don't want to distance myself from the fire spinners and some of my favorite dancers.  It's not always easy to let go of ex-boyfriends I still want to be friends with.  It's challenging to admit that I'll never see these people again, and in truth, I really don't want to.  They were what they were in my life at the time, but I've moved on and it's time to accept that.  It doesn't help me to hold on to those old pieces of my past, not unless they have some purpose in my future.  It's time to move on and live in the now.

After all that I managed to cut back by another 30 friends.  Honestly, I thought I'd feel bad about it, but already I feel so much better!  It's a huge relief to know I'm not going to be staring at all those faces and updates every time I log on, knowing those people really aren't a part of my life.  It's a huge relief to let go and know that those are people I'll see if I'm meant to, but I won't if I'm not.  I can stop holding out for hope that we can once again be friends some day.

Feeling pretty confident at how easy all of that turned out to be (and how wonderful it felt) I decided to go for a third and final purge.  Anything more for one day might just bee too much.  For starters, it's a HUGE time drain.  It takes a lot of time to click and delete every one.  There's no bulk delete action.  I didn't know how many more people I could delete without feeling a little bad about it.  There are a handful of people I still want to keep on the list because, well, I still really care about them and I want to stay in touch, but the whole thing was pretty darn brutal!

When that was done I'd shaved about another nearly 20 Facebook friends!  Can you believe it?  That means I've stopped being "friends" with over 125 people!  It feels so incredibly freeing!

Looking at all of that, I've come to realize the shocking difference between Facebook friends and real friends.  I've had a lot of Facebook friends.  They come and go over time.  Some of them are people that really were influential in my life at one point or another.  Most of them have fallen away.  We've grown apart and distant.  We've taken different directions in our lives.  It's perfectly normal, and in times before Facebook, that's just how it was.  There's something about Facebook that gets people thinking they have to hang on to these old friendships that have fallen by the wayside.  They have to keep on their computer to check for updates from friends they rarely hear about, and often times truly don't care what those people are doing.  Instead of letting go of the past and growing up, it's too easy to leave that as a landmark for change in our lives.  We need to hold ourselves up to those old friends and see where we stand.

Well, I've decided I don't need that anymore.  I'm grown up now.  I'm a big girl.  I don't need a bunch of people that aren't really a part of my life checking in with me and giving me their two cents.  I don't need anyone's permission to live my life the way I choose.  I just need to be myself.  In truth, I feel much happier knowing that the people that remain are people I truly love and enjoy in my life.  So for those of you out there who are reading this and are more than just my Facebook friends, thanks for being there for me.  You have no idea how much I appreciate you!

Feeling off Track

I don't know what's been going on with me lately.  I've finally figured out where I want to be and what I want to be doing, but I feel like I'm totally missing the point.  I'm being sidetracked by things that really are important, but seem to be taking away from my goals.  It seems like I've somehow lost touch with the kind o person I want to be and somehow this stranger has intervened to take it's place.

This past week has been spent largely cleaning and organizing my house.  I've got all the science and nature books put on one shelf.  Another shelf is half history books, half coloring and craft books.  That frees up more room in my daughter's book shelves to keep the books she actually wants.  I'm hoping that will mean she can fit all of her chapter books and everything else.  It's amazing how much space is freed up just by organizing the books.  It helps to have all the books that relate to school in a place where they can all share them.

The living room book shelves started the journey.  I've been cleaning them from top to bottom.  The whole room looks so much nicer without all the crazy clutter, which means once I get all the books up off the floor and into the places they need to go, I can finally feel a bit better about having people over!  It's also nice to be able to find the books I want to read when I want to read them.  I've been doing a decent amount of reading lately.  It's nice to feel like I'm expanding my mind.

The reading I've been doing lately is different too.  I've been focusing on non-fiction reading.  I'm trying to develop a focus on things that relate to my life, spirituality, diet, parenting, and those sorts of topics.  It's been refreshing to sit back and read for a while without feeling guilty about it.  After all, reading isn't a guilty pleasure.  It's expanding my mind and helping to set a good example for my children.  It's a great way to relax too.

Still, in all of this I'm starting to feel like maybe my life is starting to get off track again.  I'm cleaning, reading, and taking care of my home, but what about my spirituality?  What about changing the patterns in my life?  What about becoming the person I want to be?  Am I going to lose some of that in my quest to get my physical surroundings up to par so we can maintain the status quo?  Or does that somehow relate into it all, that being a more "normal" family somehow will help me on my way to accepting my new life as Mommy above all else, putting aside any other labels?

It just feels like maybe I'm losing a part of myself in all of this, that somehow I'm missing something that's incredibly integral to who I am.  I just wish I knew what it was so I could take a step forward and truly embrace that part of my life.  I am who I am.  I just hope I'm not starting to lose sense of that.

New Morning Routine...and Tea

It's morning.  I've been up for a while, which is a shock to most who know me well.  The fact that I'm up before 9am is a minor miracle.  The fact that I'm not cranky and crabby on top of it may make some people who know me who brainwashed me, because this isn't what I'm normally like.  I'm the lazy mom that rolls out of bed last minute and does as little in the possible in the morning, generally because I stay up all night.

Over the past few days I've been experimenting with a new sleep routine.  I don't sleep in anymore.  I'm trying desperately not to let myself get out of bed after 7am.  It's been working out great.  I'm up when my kids get up, and I'm surprisingly not crabby.  Next week I think I may try and bump it earlier by a half hour and then again the week after that so I'll be getting up at 6am.  Then I'll have enough time to do yoga in the morning before the kids wake up.

Yoga is one of those things I used to do in the mornings way back when I still worked at the eyeglass company.  I would have to get up at 5am in order to have time in the morning, and there was barely room.  We were staying with a friend in his living room.  We had an air mattress out and slept on that, but that took up so much room that it was hard to find space to do yoga.  I would have to keep it really quiet because my daughter and her father were asleep.  I would do an hour of yoga, eat a light breakfast, then walk to the station to catch the 7am train.  Every morning I would show up almost two hours early for work or more, but waiting for a later train would leave me a half hour late, so there wasn't much in the way of option there.  I'd spend my time waiting with a good book, eating a horrible breakfast from the fast-food joint in the food court or hanging out at the coffee shop with some tea or hot chocolate.  It wasn't much of a fancy ritual or anything, but it was my ritual each morning, and I loved it.

There's just something about yoga in the morning.  It's invigorating and wakes up the body, sure, but there's something more to it.  It's not just gentle stretching and strengthening.  It's also meditative.  There's something about moving through the poses, focusing on the inner thoughts and the actual feelings and sensations in the body (and in all honesty here, I'm thinking, "My body is SO not flexible enough for that!")  I feel more connected to myself when I do yoga, more present in my own physical form, more aware of everything going on in my own person.  It's wonderful.

All of that ended the first time when I broke my elbow.  After three months of not being able to do much of anything followed by almost a year of being unable to do yoga because I didn't have the strength, I got out of the habit.  It's so easy to get lazy about things, even when it's something enjoyable.  I tried on a couple of occasions to get back into it, but I never really did.  I've heard that it takes 21 days to make a new habit, good or bad, and I've never been able to last out that three week period before.  After a couple of days I'm making excuses about not having enough time for yoga, which is largely true when I get up to a house full of bustling activities, everyone already doing their own things for the day.  There's no peaceful, quiet time for me to focus on yoga.  Even if I shut myself in my room, the kids come in demanding this or that.  They don't exactly make it easy.  Besides, once the day is rolling, it's often easy to drop things off the schedule when things get hectic, and it's all too easy to make excuses of being too busy or tired.

Of course, getting up before the kids is a ritual in the making.  It's going to involve cleaning my living room so I can have a space to do yoga.  It will mean getting my yoga  mat out of the closet.  I'll have to start waking up consistently about an hour earlier each day.  It's going to take some time to get there, but I have a goal.  From there it's keeping up with it for 21 days so it becomes habit, and hopefully after that it will be so much easier to get up to in the morning.  That's going to be my first goal, last out 21 days of daily yoga.

On another note, nothing says morning like tea.  Tea and yoga kind of go hand-in-hand.  Most of the people I know who do yoga are also big tea drinkers.  It's probably got to do with yoga and tea both being healthy for you, so one would imagine that would be a good combination.  It's a great way to wake up in the morning, and truth be told, I like it better than coffee.  I've never been much of a coffee drinker anyway.  That's what I'm doing this morning.  Sitting at my computer, drinking some tea.  My cabinet is full of tea.  I've got so much tea it's almost shocking, considering most of it's never even been touched.  It's time I made tea a part of my morning ritual too.  It's probably a lot healthier for me than most of my other morning routines!  At least I can say it's good for me!

All in all, I think I'm taking a positive step forward in my life.  Most mornings I've woken up crabby, just wanting to be left alone only to be ambushed by children that want my attention, and haven't been getting it since I've been sleeping.  Even having someone else get up with the kids in the morning doesn't seem to stop the madness when I finally get up.  Now I'm less cranky in the morning, more focused, and much happier.  I don't know if it's the quality of sleep I've been getting or if it's got to do with the much quieter pace in the morning, but I'm feeling so much more approachable.  It leaves me with a couple of hours to get myself collected in the morning too.  I can spend some time on the computer, reading a book, or even just sitting to meditate by myself for a while before my day needs to get rolling.  It leaves me to feel less rushed when I finally do have to get up and go do something.  I guess, in a way, I feel so much more balanced, and I'm continuing to follow that path.

What I Want

Today I was given a glimpse of what I want in my life.  I feel like I've finally found a place I might start to feel like I fit in.  My family and I were at the homeschool co-op today, and I finally felt like I was surrounded with my kind of people.  One of them even wants dreads (which reminds me, I'm way behind on keeping everyone updated on how those are going...)!  It was good to feel like I was in a place where I didn't feel like a freak.  For once I felt like I belonged.  I didn't even realize that was so much what I wanted until I was surrounded by it.  I guess this is what I get for not spending any time with my good friend, Krystal.  I miss her, but she's always so busy.  She goes through phases like that.  I guess I do too.

For the longest time I thought what I wanted to be was a dancer.  It was a dream my mother told me was impossible.  I was too old for ballet by the time I was getting into dance, so I'd pretty much given up on all dance.  Dance wasn't an option for me.  It could never be a career.  That door was closed.  When I found out belly dance was still an option, I threw myself into it.  I should have been honest with myself.  I would have loved it as a hobby, but as a professional?  That's just not where I'm at.  I love to dance, but I think the dream of being a dancer is something I should have let die a long time ago.  Perhaps knowing I could never do it made me fight that much harder for it when I found a way.  Yes, I'll always love dance, but the truth is I'm just tired of it.  It's been wearing me down slowly for years, but I don't think it's what I want anymore.  I've got other goals in mind.  I think doing it as a hobby, or maybe taking a certification course to teach prenatal dance would be something that suits me, but I'm definitely not the kind of person to be a professional dancer.  It's just not who I am anymore.

Instead I'm finding I'm really happy with being a mother.  It's not what I imagined I'd be.  It wasn't until not long before I was pregnant with my oldest that I even decided I might want kids some day, and at that point it was only one.  A little over nine years later and I'm hitting the sadness of all my friends having babies and I want another one.  I've already got three and people keep cursing me with four already (they keep telling me I've already got four!) so I guess it's fitting.  Even so, I never thought I'd be here.  I thought I'd long ago been done with having children, yet I still want more.  Sometimes I think I must be crazy.

It's not just having babies to have babies.  I want to see the wonderful people they grow up to be.  It's more than the first steps and the first words, I want the experience of the first time they read, the first time they discover something they really love, the moment they see what they want to do in life.  I want the experience of turning a helpless little infant into whatever they want to become some day, once they figure it out for themselves, of course.

Then there's everything else I envision.  I see moms wearing their babies.  I see breastfeeding at the co-op.  I see women who are cloth diapering or using elimination communication.  The kids are learning about all sorts of things.  They're developing new interests.  It's an amazing thing.  I'm seeing moms who are gluten-free and they're using holistic remedies.  It's everything I hoped I'd some day be doing.  I feel like I've found a home with these other women.  It feels like the right place to be.  This is where I want to raise my kids, not just for them, but because I feel fulfilled by it too.  I feel like they've welcomed me into the fold, in a way, like I've found a place that I finally feel satisfied by.

Add this to everything else I want in life, to be sustainable and all of that, and I think that's the direction I should be looking.  I really love dance, but dance doesn't give me the feeling of making an impact on the world.  Dance is a beautiful art and it makes people feel or think, but it's not at all like changing the world by teaching the next generation another way.  I think this is it.  I've finally found what I need to be doing with my life.  I've finally found where I belong.

Forgiveness Versus Worthlessness

This weekend there was a bit of a situation.  A friend of mine pointed out something to me about myself and I don't think he even really meant to.  It's true that other people can make a fantastic mirror to ourselves.  We just need to be open enough to look.  In my case, it was too much of a slap in the face to ignore.

To save on the drama, because it's their business, not mine, I'll give you the short version.  My friend's wife has a tendency of doing things that pretty much shows she doesn't give a damn about anyone but herself.  She always backs them up with these excuses that don't hold up any deeper than the surface.  While other people leave these little pinholes in their logic, she leaves the grand canyon.  Even with these shoddy excuses and pathetic attempts to cover herself, her husband still forgives her every time and acts as though nothing happened at all.  Why does he do this?  Because he makes her feel bad.

The truth is with the way she's acting she deserves to feel bad.  It's not like he's actively going out and tearing her down about something she can't help.  She's done something that he finds hurtful.  She makes him feel bad or hurt and in return she's having to suffer the results of her own actions.  The person making her feel bad is none other than herself.

Unfortunately, time and time again the husband feels bad.  I can understand that.  If you truly love someone you don't want them to feel bad.  You'll probably do just about anything to make them feel better, once you're over your own pain about what they've done.  Sadly, doing that means when all is said and done they learn that all they have to do is pout a bit, let a few tears drop, and before you know it, everything's just as it should be.  If they're lucky, the innocent party in it all feels so poorly that they're now the one taking actions to make it right, when they did nothing wrong to feel bad about!

How does this apply to me?  That husband and I have a lot in common.  When someone in my life wrongs me, I tend to act, well, cold and a little mean.  Should that person cry, whine, feel bad, I don't tell them, "You brought it on yourself by treating me poorly."  No, I tend to open my heart to them and feel bad that I said something that might be construed as mean.  I feel bad, when in reality, I'm not the one who should feel bad at all.  I'm the one who was hurt, and my forgiving nature is causing me to set myself up to go through it again.

The truth is, by forgiving and forgetting, you can easily become a door mat.  You can easily be walked over because people come to realize one thing above all else, all they have to do is feel a little bad and you're head over-heels in apologies and trying to make it better.  You're not the one who did anything wrong.  You're completely entitled to express your pain.  However, they make you feel that you're not.  They make you feel they were justified.

This is exactly how I got in an abusive and controlling relationship.  Instead of putting my foot down and calling things what they were, I kept making excuses for him.  Why?  He would make excuses to me and therefore I would forgive him.  The whole world told me I was being an idiot, or worse, blamed me.  I felt so bad all the time that I thought it was all my fault.  It took me a good long while to realize that I was being conditioned into accepting pretty much anything he did was for the best, even though it meant using people, losing friends, and having a completely unstable lifestyle.

The truth is that's not forgiveness.  That's a lack of self-worth.  Forgiveness is a good thing, but you can't "forgive and forget", not completely.  You need to recognize patterns in the person's life and if they're still repeating the same action, then they don't feel sorry for what they're doing.  It's time to cut your losses and leave or put your foot down.  There is no excuse for hurting people you supposedly love, which means pouting and feeling bad shouldn't make anyone feel guilty about being upset.

As sad as it is that my friend is going through this, I know I can't change his situation.  That doesn't mean I can't learn from his situation and bring it into my own life.  I need to stop being a doormat.  I need to stop accepting weak excuses and an upset look because I have no reason to feel bad when other people's actions upset me.  They are responsible for their own actions, not me.  In reality, if I'm upset or hurt, I've got every right to own my own feelings.  If someone does something to hurt me, I have every right to feel bad.  If they feel bad about what they've done, it's probably their conscience speaking.  This will sound horrible, but they're getting what they asked for.  What you put out always returns to you, whether you call it karma, the law of three, holy justice, or whatever.

So what am I getting at?  It's about time I developed a spine.  It's time I stopped trying to live with things I shouldn't have to live with.  It's time I stop feeling guilty about things when I've done nothing wrong.  It's time I start looking at the people in my life, and instead of forgiving them blindly and welcoming them back in my life with open arms, I need to put my foot down.  Yes, I'll always forgive, but sometimes it's better to forgive and walk away than put yourself in a situation where I'll be hurt because that other person has some growing up to do before our relationship is anything more than hurtful experiences.

My friend may never know he's inspired me this way.  I doubt he'll read this blog, and I'm not about to tell him.  No matter how I try and say it, it'll come across as though I'm expecting him to change.  I hate seeing him walked all over, but I can't ask him to change.  I can't tell him how to live his life.  However, I need to do this for me.  I have a feeling my life is going to be so much better as a result, and I'm going to be a much stronger person.  This is going to be a growing experience for me.  I can't wait.

What to Do about Eggs...

As promised to my facebook readers, here's a list of egg substitutes I've found and some suggestions about planning to use them.  Keep in mind, I haven't tried all of these yet, so I can't say how well they may or may not work.  Each of them alters the consistency of the recipe in a different way, so it can't hurt to try an few things out and see what works for you.  Here's the list or substitutes equivalent to one egg., and I'll follow it with some thoughts on using them:

• 2 Tbsp Potato Starch
• 1 Banana, Mashed
• 1/4 cup Apple Sauce
• 1/4 cup of Mashed Potatoes
• 1/4 cup canned Pumpkin or Squash
• 1/4 cup pureed Prunes
• 1/4 cup of Soft Tofu
• 2 Tbsp water, 1 Tbsp oil, 2 Tsp Baking Powder, mixed
• 1 Tbsp ground Flax Seed simmered in 3 Tbsp Water
• An egg replacer called Ener G

Of course, when looking to replace eggs you've really got to think about what you're using the bread for in a recipe.  For example, banana, applesauce, and mashed potatoes aren't likely to help in a bread that needs to rise.  Mashed potatoes can have a lumpy consistency when hand made, something to keep in mind when cooking with egg.  However, they may offer the perfect sticky consistency to replace the egg.

In reality, it's a game of cooking chemistry.  What can you use that will fulfill the purpose?  It's also a great lesson in science as you research what the egg does in each individual recipe.  I can't wait to start trying some of these substitutions!

Oh, and just want egg whites?  Take one Tbsp of plain agar powder and mix it with an equal part of water.  Whip it, chill it, and whip it again for a suitable egg white substitute!

What Can I Eat?

This whole thing was frustrating before, but now I feel like I'm being starved!  Going off of commercially-made foods, processed foods, is a lot harder than I'd ever imagined.  I had no idea it was going to be this hard!

I'll be honest, the biggest problem I have with going off of everything is not knowing what to eat.  It's not like I have a nutritionist at my disposal to advise me on what I can and can't have, though that would be lovely.  Instead I have to figure it out as I go along.  I have to play with what I need and what I'm missing out on in my diet.  Right about now it feels like I'm missing out on a good deal, but that's also because I've been programmed by society to eat so many of these processed foods.

Going out to eat has become a bit of an impossibility.  I've looked at many menus and as much as they offer gluten-free solutions, many of them are known for still using eggs and dairy in the baking process for breads and the like.  For example, a friend of mine suggested Jason's Deli does a gluten-free menu.  Unfortunately, having checked their menu, all I can have is the salad bar...and then the only dressing I can have is oil and vinegar, which I'm not terribly fond of to begin with.  Everything else on their gluten-free menu has eggs, milk, or soy.  It's not exactly easy to find a food that's free of all of those things, again, unless I hit up the salad bar. It's not exactly fun to be eating rabbit food when everyone else is eating something so delicious looking.

I've also learned that making things from scratch means really making everything from scratch.  Just going to the grocery store to pick up some beef broth I realized it's got dairy in it as well as tons of soy.  Beef stock is even worse with honey.  I'm kind of glad I've never used beef stock before!  The more I go along the more I realize that I do have to make 100% of my meals from scratch.  I can't even use prepackaged ingredients because everything's got additives I just can't have.  I think it might just be fun to start making my own stuff from beginning to end, but at the same time, this whole allergy thing is sapping my energy.  I just don't have the energy for that whole process.  At the same time, if I cheat and eat things I shouldn't, or starve myself, then where am I going to be?  Without the energy to do it!  It's a catch 22 no matter what I do.

Thankfully, this new diet does mean eating more regularly.  I can no longer snack throughout the day unless it's fruits and veggies.  That means I'm more likely to eat fruits and veggies, and since they don't fill me up the same way, I'm still hungry come meal time, though I haven't really been eating meals all that often.  Even so, I'm starting to feel like I'm getting somewhere with all of this, even if it is just a small change towards healthier living.  Every small step is one step closer, right?

To My Reader!

I ran into one of my readers today at the gas station!  That was awesome!  I'm so happy to know that I'm actually connecting with people, people I may not even personally know, people that may not be a part of my daily life.  I think that's fantastic!  That completely made my day.

It was also made aware that you needed to be a registered user to post comments on my blog, so she was unable to leave a comment.  Well, I changed that, so everyone can now make comments, and please do!  I love hearing back from my readers!  I love hearing what all of you have to say about what I'm doing, the experiences I'm having, and everything else!  Definitely feel free to share opinions, ideas, feedback, and whatever else crosses your mind!

I have to thank that reader I met at the gas station today.  Not only did that make my day, but it makes me smile to know how many lives I'm touching.  It makes me feel like I'm really doing something with my life.  Now if only I'd thought to take a picture with you today to post on the blog too!  Wouldn't that be something?

Thanks so much to everyone for reading.  Usually I don't blog on Fridays, but I felt it was a special occasion and I really needed to share!  Thanks so much for making this possible!

Grocery Shopping for a New Diet

Grocery shopping for a larger family is already hard enough without adding more complications.  We've got three children and three adults in this house.  It's not easy to find foods that all of us will eat, and that's not even looking into the reality that we're also in a house with food allergies.  I know some people have told me I may as well just let everyone eat what they like, but that's not as easy as it sounds.  That could result in making five dinners every day because not everyone can eat the same things.  I'm not about to do that.  Instead, I've decided to take the whole house with me on my journey through allergy land!

At this point, we're avoiding a whole huge list of things, and let me tell you, they're in everything!  The hardest one to escape seems to be soy.  While making things from scratch with a gluten substitute isn't that bad, and there's plenty of ways to avoid dairy, even the substitutes for dairy contain soy (and sometimes soy and dairy combined!) which makes trying to avoid soy an interesting challenge.  To simplify things, I'm cutting soy out of my diet last because, well, I still want to be able to add butter to things a little bit longer.  It's not easy trying to escape these ingredients!

When we go to the store we've got a lot to take into consideration.  I have all of my allergies, and Marrok (the former owner of the perfect grunge shirt) has his nut allergies.  That means we've got to be very selective about what we get.  To further complicate things, we're a pork-free household, which means we've got one more option off the list.  At present we're avoiding poultry, too, as it's often injected with casein to keep it fresh.  This means fish, beef, lamb, and a lot of vegetables.  We even have to be careful about our dairy substitutes as many of them contain nuts.  Obviously soy milk is out, and Marrok can't have almond milk.  Surprisingly, coconut milk comes with a warning that it may contain almonds.  We may have to change over to rice milk depending on how he reacts.  That may not be a bad thing considering I actually like rice milk for cooking.  As he's said, we just need to make sure we have a phone handy in case of emergency.  I don't want my need for healthy living to kill him!

Shopping at Walmart, unfortunately, proves problematic.  They don't have very much selection on anything.  It seems like they're part of the culture that feeds into unhealthy America, and if I could afford to, I'd boycott the store.  Unfortunately, Walmart seems to be one of those companies no one but the rich can afford to boycott.  When it comes to home goods, clothing, and everything else, their prices can't be beat.  However, this isn't exactly the time for my rant on how Walmart is part of the downfall of this country and it's economy.  I'm trying to focus on something much happier, my own health.

Having little other option, and wanting to make gravy to go with my new version of shepherd's pie, I had to pick up some kind of flour.  Sadly, there aren't a lot of options for flours that don't contain gluten in your Walmart baking aisle.  There's tons of wheat flour of any variety imaginable.  There's organic and non-organic, self-rising flour with yeast, baking flour, and pretty much everything else.  There were more kinds of wheat flour than I had ever imagined, but only one small shelf with soy flower in small packages.  There were only two rows of it and the shelf was hardly full.  It seems like society expects that people don't have wheat allergies and things like that.  Apparently the local Asian market offers rice flour, which will probably be where I shop in the future, but until then my only option was soy flour.  They sold it in tiny packages, so small it made me glad I didn't have to do any serious baking with it.  As something to make gravy with, it wouldn't be so bad, but it certainly isn't an economical purchase for frequent use!  I can't wait to check out my options.  I'm looking forward to being soy-free and I'm hoping that rice four is a better option for us.  I've heard there are all kinds of gluten-free wheat substitutes out there, but I don't know much about them.  I'm going to have to do some research on this one because the more options I have, the better.

Butter was another challenging problem for me.  There really aren't many options when it comes to butter as most of them contain soy.  I wouldn't be surprised if all of them contain casein in their "natural flavor", but I decided it was worth a try.  I can't kick everything and butter is such a common additive for cooking.  Apparently there are only two options that do not contain dairy as a main component available at Walmart.  I hear HEB has a better selection, but I wasn't brave enough to try them.  I've found their prices to be even more steep than Walmart locally.  Smart Balance has a butter made from extra virgin olive oil.  There is also a company called Best Life that makes a stick butter.  Both products have soy, but at this point I'm running out of options.  I don't know if they make a butter that's dairy and soy free.

I couldn't help myself when it came to the milk section.  Passing my favorite chocolate milk was far too sad for me.  I didn't check the ingredients (though I suppose I should have and probably still should), but I got some chocolate almond milk.  I couldn't resist.  I had to do something for me, and we were already there buying coconut milk.  I know it's not going to be anywhere near as good as the chocolate milk I used to drink, but I can at least try it.  You never know, I may love it!  I think that's going to be the hardest part of going dairy-free.  I don't like the milk substitutes near as much as I like milk.  With how expensive this stuff is, I may have to look at making my own.  I got a recipe for rice milk that I'm going to have to try out and review later.  It would definitely put me one step closer to the root of the process, something I think is very important when you're making your own foods, especially when it comes to allergies.

To balance things out a bit, and to give me something fast and loaded with sugar for sugar crashes we loaded up in the produce section.  I picked up some butternut squash.  I'm going to try acorn squash, though I have no idea how to prepare it.  We bought a bunch of potatoes, since those are always safe.  They may not be near as good without butter, but I'm sure I can find a way to make them taste yummy without it.  Carrots and broccoli are always favorites around here, but again, I cook my carrots with butter, so that might get interesting once I kick the soy.  I've been told I should check out the Asian food market here for vegetables too.  Apparently they have an excellent variety of squash and other things.  It would be nice to have something to resort to that doesn't come in a can.  I love canned corn for it's sake of ease, but I miss having fresh corn from the little farm back home.  If anyone who reads this lives in the Arlington, Mass area, check out Wilson's Farm.  They're fantastic!

Then we loaded up with fruits, even though we only got clementines and black plums.  I've noticed in Texas there's only one short window where you can get black plums.  The rest of the time it's red plums, which I can't stand and I never knew why.  I think it's because I grew up on black plums.  My dad and I used to eat them every summer.  Clementines were new to me in high school.  My mom got a bunch from someone she was in school with and brought them home.  My sister and I adored them  They were the best thing we'd had in quite some time and we couldn't get enough.  I've always liked oranges, but the sweet, easy taste to these was delightful.  I've bought them ever since and my kids and I enjoy them.  They're harder to find when it gets cool, but in the summer, they're everywhere.  I just wish you could get the big crates of them like we always used to be able to find back home.  They would last for what seemed like forever.

We picked up some teas too.  I love drinking tea.  I haven't been drinking it so much because it's just been too hot, but if I'm not going to be drinking soda, I need to have something other than water.  I love juice, but I don't want to be filling myself up with that much sugar.  Tea is an incredible alternative.  Besides, I can get a mint tea that will help settle my stomach with everything that's going on.  We picked up some Yogi mint tea for me.  We also grabbed some Yogi detox tea for Marrok, since he's put a lot of unhealthy things in his system over the years, and if it helps his body purge, all the better.  I picked up some Celestial Seasons Vanilla Sleepytime Tea for the kids, and some Chai for Chesh.  I figure tea will be something that can benefit the whole family.

Because it's been forever since I've had honey, we stopped and looked at the Agave.  Marrok immediately jumped on it and said I should get it.  It was cute.  He said, "You use honey in your tea, right?"  I almost laughed.  Of all the things I'm allergic to, honey is perhaps the most evil.  Just one spoonful is enough to make me double over with abdominal pain and be sick for a week.  Because of this, I'd never gotten used to honey in tea.  My allergy picked up before I'd even started drinking tea, back when I was about twelve, maybe younger.  I decided it might be fun to try something new to sweeten my tea, so we'll see how it works.  I may just decide I would rather not sweeten it at all.  He's so kind for thinking of me though!

To top it all off, we got a lot of red meat and some fish.  We're going to be making steak, roast, and stew.  Of course, red meat is the most painful and expensive part of the whole thing.  One would think in Texas it would be cheaper and more affordable, but I guess not.  I also find myself missing living back home.  There's something about getting fresh fish that's so much better than the frozen stuff offered here.  It felt like there were so many more options, at least where fish was concerned.

Living back home things were different.  The local co-op held many options for those with diet restrictions.  I was able to live on a healthy diet for me for a year without a problem there before I decided to start cheating on everything again.  It felt good to know that I was able to live off of foods I liked without having to worry so much.  Here we don't have a co-op, unless you drive to Austin.  We don't even have a Whole Foods.  The options for something healthy are far more limited.  Our little Asian market seems to be the best option for someone like myself, but sometimes it would be nice to have a wide variety of options.  It would be nice to go into a place that looks and feels like a health food store, as silly and pointless as that may sound.

I can't wait to get to somewhere more health conscious than this hole in the wall city.  It will be so nice to go grocery shopping without having to worry about how much variety I can actually get.  Yes, I may still have to check labels, but a number of these health food companies are good at labeling.  They love to slap gluten-free, soy-free, and dairy-free on anything they can because they know it will get them attention from all the right people.  It helps people recognize how to shop.  It helps them recognize what they need to get without sitting there, reading labels.  It gets their company attention.

The sad thing is a lot more Americans have problems with these foods than anyone could ever have imagined.  Doctors don't exactly suggest eliminating foods as a first course of action when people come in complaining about health problems.  They would rather prescribe medications for pain, migraines, and mental disorders than focus on changing the diet to see if that helps, because adding more chemicals to the body solves anything...  We're only facing an increased chemical dependency in our country as the days go by.  Who knows what our country would look like if we learned how to eat right, eat healthy, and take care of our bodies?  Perhaps this is a sign that we should start putting a focus on eating right for a healthier, happier, America.  Who knows?  Maybe the suicide rate will drop.  I have no doubts that American obesity would be less of a problem.  Problems like arthritis and asthma might be reduced as they can relate to food allergies (though most people don't know that....I didn't know that)!

We've Made It to Six Months!

And we're here...past six months!  It somehow feels like it's been so much longer than that.  I've had to deal with some difficult situations.  I've had more than a few friends try and convince me to get rid of them.  It's not exactly easy to keep to a commitment when everyone keeps telling me I should get rid of them.  I have to stand against what most of my friends think I do.

I know most of my friends hate my dreads, but I've got to breathe.  I've got to realize that it's not their hair.  It's not their lives.  They've got to accept that this is my hair, my choice, and they don't have to like it.  I particularly enjoy my hair and they shouldn't be pressuring me to conform to their standards.

The hardest thing for me is a number of my friends shaving their heads in various ways.  In all of this I got the comment that I should shave my head.  Mind you, I don't want to shave my head again.  I love my dreads.  They suit me and I'm pretty happy with them, even though they have a long way to go to hit perfect.  These things take time, of course, but at the same time, I have to consider what my friends must think of the process.  It's scary to think I'm doing something so different, so unique, something I'll feel so alone about.

I don't want to go against the grain.  I don't want to break the mold.  I don't really want to do this to be different, but I kind of have no option, in a way.  All I want is to be happy.  I want my friends to accept me for who I am, to love me for what I like, and to let me be me.  That's not what I've been getting at all.  It's a lot of pressure.  I'm just glad the men I live with are so incredibly accepting, that my dance partner seems to adore my dreads, and that I've got some encouragement to be myself.  It would be quite the challenge without that.  I can't imagine having to go through this feeling isolated and alone until people started realizing that this look, these dreads, they're not going away.  This is a part of who I am, the style I choose, the way I want to be.  They can take me for who I am, or they can leave me.

As for these dreads?  I love them.  I'm six months in and I'm still enjoying them.  This is the longest I've held any one style without regret.  I think I should take that as a sign.