Just a note...

I'm currently blogging my raw food journey on a new blog "Raw Food Renewal"... Please visit me here: http://rawfoodrenewal.blogspot.com/

:)

Debra

Christmas Season Survival

Marissa is 5 now. So of course she's at a great age for Christmas time, and this year presents new challenges from last year, and I'm sure from next year as well. This year she developed the "I have to have everything" bug. Andrew came up with a fun solution to this. Whenever she sees something in the store that she wants us to buy, he whips out his cell phone and pretends to call the North Pole, and talks to the Elves to give a message to Santa Clause that she's wants ____, whatever it is at that moment. It's really cute, and she falls for it every time. :) She stops asking us to buy her the toy or whatever, but she's expecting Santa to come through for all this stuff, and we did buy a lot of them (behind her back). But I'm sure she won't remember ALL of the things... WILL SHE??

We did a bit more Christmas shopping this morning. WARNING: It's getting to be that time of year to get out the football gear and put it on before you hit the stores. You need protection out there!

Marissa quote: "Do black squirrels swing in the trees by their nuts?"

Yikes! LOL. We were watching squirrels and talking about them gathering nuts for the winter... That was too funny. ;)

The 8 Days of Christmas.

We went out to do a little Christmas shopping today. Somehow it managed to take most of the afternoon, but that was okay. We weren't really in a hurry or anything so we took our time. But boy, were we in the minority. People were running around like crazy. I don't get it. There's a WHOLE WEEK left till Christmas, what's the rush? :)

One of my favourite Christmas songs is Bob and Doug Mckenzie's "12 Days of Christmas". But they actually only do 8 days, LOL. It's not the same to just read it as it is to listen to them ad-lib their way through it, but here's the lyrics. Enjoy some good Canadian humour. :)

The 12 Days of Christmas

Bob and Doug Mckenzie

Bob: Okay, good day, this is our Christmas part of the album, and you can play this at your Christmas parties, uh, or to yourself on Christmas Eve, if there's nothing else to do.
Doug: Good day, eh? In case you thought, like, I wasn't on this part!
Bob: Oh, I guarantee ya, you'd be on. Okay, so, good day, this is the Christmas part, and, we're gonna tell you what to get, uh, your true love for Christmas.
Doug: Look out the window!
Bob: Where?! Whadda ya doin'?
Doug: Snow, hosehead.
Bob: Wha? Oh, it's the Great White North, and it's snowing, cause it's Christmas time. Hey, hoser!
Doug: What?
Bob: Here's a quiz. Quiz for Doug.
Doug: Okay, I have my thinking touque on.
Bob: Yeah, right. What are the twelve days of Christmas? Cause, figure it out, right. Christmas is when?
Doug: Uh, the 25th.
Bob: Right, and what's the 24th, Christmas Eve, right? So, that's two. And then, what's after that?
Doug: Um... Uh, Wrestling Day.
Bob: No. Get out.
Doug: Boxing Day, yeah, yeah.
Bob: That's three. Then what's after that? Nothing.
Doug: New Year's.
Bob: Four. And what's...
Doug: New Year's Eve.
Bob: Five. Where do you get twelve?
Doug: Uh... There's two Saturdays and Sundays in there, that's four. That's nine. And, three other days, which I believe are the mystery days.
(Music starts.)
Bob: Okay now. This is our Christmas song, in case you don't know what to get somebody for Christmas.
Doug: There's lots of ideas in here, so, listen, and don't get stuck.
Bob: Okay.
Doug: By the way, that's me on the organ.
Bob: Aw, geez.
Doug: You start.
Bob: Okay. On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: a beer.
Doug: On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: two turtlenecks,
Bob: And a beer. (Okay...) On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: three French toast,
Doug: Two turtlenecks,
Bob: And a beer. (Okay...)
Doug: There should be more there, eh?
Bob: Where? On the... go.
Doug: Fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: four pounds of backbacon,
Bob: Three French toast,
Doug: Two turtlenecks,
Bob: And a beer.
Doug: In a tree. See, you need more.
Bob: Oh yeah!
Bob: Fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: five golden touques!
Doug: Four pounds of backbacon,
Bob: Three French toast,
Doug: Two turtlenecks,
Bob: And a beer, what was it?
Together: In a tree!
Bob: Okay, on the sixth... go.
Doug: Of Christmas, my true love gave to me: six packs of two-four,
Bob & BG Singers: Five golden touques!
Doug: Four pounds of backbacon,
Bob: Three French toast,
Doug: Two turtlenecks,
Bob: And a beer,
Together: In a tree!
Bob: Okay.
Doug: Okay.
Bob: On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me: seven packs of smokes,
Doug and the BG singers: Nice gift!
Doug: Oh, six packs of two-four!
Bob & BG Singers: Five golden touques!
Doug: Four pounds of backbacon,
Bob: Three French toast,
Doug: Two turtlenecks,
Bob: And a beer,
Together: In a tree!
Bob: Right, I keep forgetting.
Doug: Phew! This should just be the two days of Christmas, it's too hard for us!
Bob: Uh-huh...
Doug: Go, hoser.
Bob: Oh.
Together: Eighth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:
Doug: Eight comic books,
All: Seven packs of smokes, six packs of two-four,
(Bob and Doug become unsynchronized with the BG Singers, and quit singing.)
BG Singers: Five golden touques! Four pounds of backbacon, three French toast, two turtlenecks,
All: And a beer,
Doug: On my knee!
Bob: Yeah, that beer's empty. Okay. Day,
BG Singers: Twelve!
Bob: Uh, twelve.
Doug: Good day, and welcome to day twelve.
All: Five golden touques! Four pounds of backbacon, three French toast, two turtlenecks, and a beer, in a tree!
(Bob sings harmony during "in a tree")
Bob: Beauty, eh?
Doug: Where'd you learn to do that?
Bob: Uh, albums.
Doug: Boy. So, like, that's our song, Merry Christmas...
Bob: Merry Christmas!
Doug: And good day!
Bob: Good day, everybody. Happy New Year, too. Ssssshhhhh.
Bob: Okay, you know what you left out?
Doug: What?
Bob: Donuts - I told you to get me donuts! Either on the ninth day or the tenth day, or the eleventh day, I wanted donuts!
Doug: Okay, the song's over.
Bob: But I want...
Doug: Merry Christmas, everybody!
Bob: Or on the twelfth day, you coulda got me a dozen donuts.
Doug: So, go out to the stores, and get some presents.
Bob: You coulda gone down to, like, the good donut shop, where if you buy a dozen, you get another one free, and then it'd be thirteen for the thirteen days of Christmas.
Doug: Well, next Christmas, I'll get me a chainsaw...
Bob: Take off!
Doug: Boy. That song was a beauty. It... it moved me.
Bob: Yeah, I think it ranks up there with Stairway to Heaven...
Doug: Wha-?
(Music fades.)

Step Into the Boat!!

After writing my last blog entry I emailed Elaine and she's been helping me out. She is just the coolest person ever. She reminded me of some things from class and it's all making soooo much sense now. I'm human (yay) and have been clinging to my comfort zones. :) But if I want to accomplish my goals and move towards my dreams I have to step out of my comfort zones and take some risks. I'm feeling somewhat better as I'm currently working on three steps towards my goals and hope to have them done by tomorrow. Yay for me. I'm looking forward to how I'm going to feel when they're done. One thing that I've realized is that as soon as emotions start surfacing, I stop dead in my tracks and retreat back to my comfort zones. So from now on I'm going to embrace my emotions and let myself have them, but still move forward and step into the "boat" (where my dreams are), however wobbly it may be. It will be a new experience for me to embrace my emotions. I tend to bottle them up and be afraid of them a lot, because I'm a very emotional person and they're very strong emotions most of the time. But it's a big part of me, so I think it will be a good thing to just let them out when they surface, and embrace them. When I think about it, it's like I'm just embracing ME, because they're such a big part of me. Wow, how cool is that?

Marissa quote of the week: "I don't NEED to go to school today, I'm smart enough already!!"

Living on Live Food

Well I've been back from my course for over a week now. It was great to spend 5 days with Alissa Cohen and learn so much from her about the raw food lifestyle. And the course wasn't just about the food, it was about so much more. The facilitator Elaine was sooo insightful and helped us realize amazing things about ourselves. A friend of mine asked me when I got back how I was feeling, and how I've changed... I didn't know how to answer that at the time. I wasn't sure how I was feeling or how to put it into words. It really was a life-changing experience. After thinking about it for the past week, there are a few things that I do know. I learned a lot about myself and what I want out of life. I've gained a lot of self-confidence, and realized how much value I have to offer. I believe in myself and feel better equipped to manifest what I want in my life. It's strange but I feel a little down at the same time. Because I've realized how much time I've spent up until now doing nothing (or next to nothing) to achieve my goals or realize my visions. I know there's no point in dwelling in the past, but it's really been pulling at me. All of the soul-searching we did during the course made me realize that I've been distancing myself from people, and neglecting things that are important to me. That's really been bothering me. I know that the only thing I can do is change things now, and for the future... But for some reason it's like I'm hesitating. I don't know if I'm just afraid of change, or if I still don't think I deserve what I want out of life, or what the problem is. Is it possible that I'm actually afraid to be happy and successful?? Is there a Doctor in the house??? Anyway, that's me in a nutshell, as crazy as it is.

Airline Insanity

I've finally arrived at my hotel in Portsmouth, NH, my destination hotel for my "Living on Live Foods" course. It was quite the ordeal to get here, let me tell you. My "non-stop" flight from Syracuse, NY to Boston, MA (which is about an hour from Kittery, ME the location of my course) which was supposed to take all of 1 hour and 22 minutes turned into over 4 hours of plane-hopping and wondering if I was going to make it here today at all. I arrived in Syracuse airport several hours before my flight, and my flight arrived on time, but when it came time for the flight to leave at 4:50 pm, the problems started. They couldn't get the airplane door closed, LOL. My seat was right up front where they were having problems, and when you hear the airline staff that's working on the plane say things like "Uh-oh!" and "the piece fell off" (!!!!), you know you're in trouble, LOL. They told us to exit the plane (I didn't complain, seeing as there were pieces falling off of it) and that they were calling maintenance and would update us on what's going on. Back into the airport we went. I didn't have a good feeling about them fixing that plane any time soon (and the flight did get cancelled shortly thereafter) so I transferred to another flight, with a stop-over in NYC, with a flight from NYC to Boston not leaving until 9:00 pm and arriving in Boston at 10:00 pm! I boarded the new plane in Syracuse just in time. Plane #2 pulls out, gets onto the runway and stops. The pilot advises us we're delayed and not cleared for take-off due to "traffic" and the plane sits on the runway for 45 minutes before we get going. This is 7:00 pm now and I'm supposed to be in Boston already, and I'm not even at my stop-over location yet. Then the pilot announces that there is a 8:00 pm and a 9:00 pm connection to Boston. I don't know why the airport attendant put me on the 9:00 if there was an 8:00 but I decide as soon as we get to NYC I'm going to see if I can get on the 8:00 because my roommate for the week was getting into Boston at 8:00 and she thinks I'm already there because my flight was supposed to arrive in Boston at 6:12 pm. Flight #2 pulls into LaGuardia airport (NYC) at 7:45 pm. I'm told the gate for the 8:00 flight is on the other end of the airport (of course, LOL). I'm out of my seat the second the seatbelt sign comes off and ready to go. Then I hear a commotion near the door. Apparently there's no gate attendant to escort us off the plane so we're not allowed off yet. After a five minute wait we're allowed to leave and it's now 7:50 pm. So, a few of us are bolting out of the plane, and literally running through the airport to get to the Gate for the 8:00 Boston flight. I felt like I was shooting a movie or something and it wasn't actually real, LOL. Then this really cool dude in like a 3 or 4 row golf cart pulls up and asks me if I'm going to Gate 20 (I was) and he tells me to hop in and he zips us past several gates and we just make the flight. What a cool job that guy has. :) After that it was pretty uneventful and I arrived in Boston on flight #3 before 9:00, LOL. I think all that was worth it just to be zipped through the airport on a golf cart, even though the ride was less than a minute. Okay, maybe not..... I'm really tired and a little delirious, actually.... Good night. :)

DETOX.. or something equally horrible...

November so far:
9 km ran
14,948 words written

Today I was 100% raw and feeling pretty good. I went out for a run that went really great, I shortened one of the walking segments and ran longer during the last running segment. My pace was better than it has been too. Then I got home. Two minutes after I sat down I felt really horrible. I felt like I was going to pass out. I think maybe I didn't eat enough today. I'm going to have to increase the amount of food I'm eating, especially on running days. I think it's partly detox too as I feel like I'm going to be sick. I ate and drank some water and I don't know what else to do but wait it out. Feel really horrible right now. But I'm so happy about my run and I think for Sunday night's run I might move from phase three to phase four. Cool. :)

Hopefully I'll feel better tomorrow. I have a lot of stuff to get done this weekend to prepare for my trip next week...

Raw Chocolate Heaven

Today was day one of 100% raw. It went pretty well. I made a raw chili recipe for the first time and it turned out good. It was a little spicy though and Marissa wouldn't eat it. :( Andrew and I liked it but I think I'll cut the spices a little next time. I also made raw chocolate-banana shakes for lunch today and raw chocolate-walnut brownies for snacks in the evening. Yummy. The brownies tasted better than cooked brownies, but Marissa wouldn't eat them. I don't know why. Though she nibbled on the ingredients on their own, and ate a couple of dates and liked those, and walnut pieces. It's a good thing there is raw chocolate because I'd have a really hard time going raw if I had to give up chocolate for good. There would just be no way. ;) I did have a bit of a hard time with coffee cravings today. I wanted to stop for one but didn't. Yay me!