Mantra

Happy Thursday all!!

We had a little bit of a snow storm yesterday and because I work in the boonies, I got the day off:)

I was on my way to work, well the hubby was chauffeuring me because he has 4X4, and I got the text to stay home. So, he dropped me off at home...but no snow day for him. Sucker..Just kidding:)

The beautiful white stuff!! Unfortunately it's already raining so everything has turned to slush..boo!

Anywho, I've been meaning to share with you something interesting astrology that was in the local paper awhile ago. I don't believe everything about astrology but sometimes it's eerily accurate. Have you ever looked up your birthday in the big birthday book? My boss brought this book in one day and it was pretty crazy how accurate some of the characteristics/stats/dates were to my life. If you are ever in Indigo or Chapters be sure to check it out. Good  fun!

The paper covered predictions for each sign in 2011. Me, I'm a Pisces!!

I like reading what astrologers have to say about my sign. It was good entertainment!!

Then I saw my so-called mantra for 2011 and I couldn't agree more!!

This is especially true come September because.....

I GOT ACCEPTED!!!!

I'm officially going back to school in September to start my schooling to become a naturopath!! I was a bundle of nerves from the beginning of the week because I knew the call would be coming. I had just finished bodyrock.tv's hit your but workout and so I was high on endorphins when my phone rang. I don't know if my heart has beat that fast EVER...well maybe on my wedding day..but this time I didn't know what would happen lol!

When Mark, BINM's director of admissions, actually said the words "welcome aboard", time stopped for that split second. I had made it, my dream was going to come true. I choked back my happy tears while the details were laid out for me, all the while pinching myself to ensure I hadn't passed out and was dreaming (bodyrock has that potential). Once I was off the phone with Mark, I did a major happy dance with lots of happy tears. I immediately called the special people in my life, changed my status to Dr. M, and then began to clean the house.

Ha! I couldn't sit still!!

Thank you all for being so supportive! I feel so blessed.

 Even though I haven't met you in person, you all have given me so much strength and courage. Seriously!

I can't wait to take you along on this new, crazy exciting part of my life!!

Cheers to a great start to 2011!!!

Yep, I had mimosas on a Wednesday night!! Hear me roar:)

Where I feel I belong and my long to-do list!

Happy Friday!

I'm excited for the weekend! Nothing too crazy exciting is happening. In fact I've got a huge list of things I need to get done and I'm actually looking forward to most of them. More on that in a bit:) I just wanted to give you a re-cap of my day yesterday. I took the day off as it was d-day for exporting the truck. We drove down to Bellingham (again!) and found the truck safe and sound in the Walmart parking lot right next to all the RV's. We then drove back to the border but Ryan had to stay behind to make sure the truck was legit (mechanically speaking) and that he wasn't hiding cocaine in the seats LOL! Luckily he had no problems and the truck is now at its new home. I made it through too, even though the border patrol guy asked me a ton of questions. Geesh! The truck needs to have an inspection done here but then it's all good to go. I keep forgetting to take a picture of it but it looks exactly like the one below except it is all red...and the top (white part in the photo) comes off:)

Now the garage is filled with his two "loves" HAHA!

For the second part of my day I headed into New Westminster for a little visit at the naturopathic school I'm hoping to attend next year - Boucher. I met with the director of admissions and alumni relations first. I had a few questions I needed to get clarified. Then I was paired up with a wonderful student in first year. I actually got to sit in her Biomed class with her! It was great too because I could follow along to a certain extent! I only graduated 3 years ago yet I feel like all that knowledge has evaporated. I'm sure its buried deep in my brain somewhere..I just need to torture it with some more organic chemistry before it will let it out:) The student was a great help to me and allowed some of my fears to be put into perspective. Plus she is a rock star - a student + a mom! And she says its doable! I met some other girls in the class and all were super friendly and welcoming too.

I feel I've found my place.

Sitting in the class listening about extracellular matrices, wound healing, zinc, scarring, collagen, and so much more, I felt HAPPY! I wanted to be in the class now, as a student. It felt so right being there and it just re-ignited my drive to really hunker down and get my application in, complete organic chemistry (again!), and continue my relationship with my ND.

Have you ever had such an epiphany?

As for this weekend, I've got a huge to-do list. Here are some of the tasks:

1. Brew sugar/tea for kombucha

2. clean the bathroom...boo

3. Start and finish first homework assignment for organic chemistry

4. Make tomato sauce - freeze it

5. Make "sun-dried" tomatoes in the dehydrator

6. Dehydrate mint, lemon balm, some basil, thyme, cilantro

7. pick up car parts for the new "love"

8. dehydrate pears and plums

9. Freeze left-over tomatoes-plain

10. work on application process - autobiography, references (have to think about who to use for the last one), budget worksheet etc etc

11. Other things I haven't thought of yet!

It's fall, baby! I can feel it, even though I think we were jipped of a summer here. I'm already craving soups and squash. Fall also gives me time to catch up on the many things that were put to the wayside for sun, shorts, and sand! Mainly those things that involved being indoors for long periods of time. I love fall even though it brings so much rain for us coastal folks. I think I love it so much because I grew up in a vacation town where September couldn't come soon enough. Tourists dominated every part of my city and I couldn't really move in July and August, let alone find a good spot on the beach! Even though I don't live there anymore September still brings me a sort of peace.

Do you welcome Fall or does it bring you down that the hot summer sun has moved on?

PS - I saw a comment on a blog the other day that bothered me a little. Basically the commenter said that a lot of people who are food bloggers don't know how to write well. I thought that wasn't necessary to say-especially in the comments section. I fully admit that I am not a pro in grammar. I started writing this blog partly to better my writing skills. I don't know, I just thought that is was uncalled for especially since we aren't writing for our English profs here. What are your thoughts?

Have a great weekend everyone!

Seeds Planted and feeling the food connection

Happy Friday everyone!

The weekend is upon us..wahoo! I'm actually pretty stoked because although I have to work at 6:30AM Saturday and Sunday, I'm off at 1pm so basically I have the whole day (at least that's what I'm telling myself:) Do you have any wonderful plans for the weekend? Tonight Ryan is going to a party with his school buddies so I'm going to chill and rebound and read and write! Why am I not going to the parrtaay? Well let's just say that the girls in the group aren't the friendliest and so at the last party I had to hang out with Ryan and I felt like a third wheel...uugh. So, I'm saving myself the boredom and the frustration of not being able to leave as its 30 minutes out of town. I'm actually excited because then I can have "me" time and do whatever I want. I know it sounds geeky but I'm actually working on my application for Boucher Institute of Naturopathic Medicine. They aren't taking in apps until August but because its a naturopathic school I need to pull all the stops with the autobiography, reference letters,
application forms, and transcripts...all you scholars know the deal. The more time I have to get ready, the more confident I am. I don't want to be preparing this all last minute, I know it would be sloppy and that's not a good first impression. I am also going to be upgrading my organic chemistry(yuck, I know) and I'm going to be studying The Language of Medicine which was recommended to me by a Boucher staff member. I was lucky to find this book practically brand new on craigslist. It's going to help me learn a lot of the terminology and it will give me a good review of the body systems as well. I cannot tell you how excited I am to start this new journey. I know its going to be hard, I know its going to take up a lot of my time, and I know my social life may not exist but I want this..BAD. I want to bring the natural medicine world to center stage and show people that your body is an amazing healing system if only you would allow it:) I have BIG plans for my career and I am so ready to learn all I can learn. I am very lucky that my province just passed legislation that allows prescribing rights to ND's. Now, you are probably thinking this goes against everything the profession stands for yet there are times when natural remedies are not enough and this way they don't have to go to an MD to get a prescription. Just try going to your MD after telling them you need a certain antibiotic because "my ND said so". It usually doesn't go smoothly, at least in my experience. The next step is to have diagnostic equipment in ND offices so they basically can be your primary physician. I will be campaigning for this legislation when it comes up. Other plans involve going to third world countries where I can provide basic medical care and some natural therapies. Do you some big career dreams?

Onto some exciting garden news...the seeds are planted! Wahoo! They are taking up the whole window area which is south facing so they get lots of sun. I saw Kelli already had some of her seeds come up:) Don't worry I'll let you know when the first sprout appears.
I love growing my own food. Last year we were living in a basement suite and so we didn't have any green space for ourselves. Yet that didn't stop me, I got all my pots together and I had quite the little garden with tomatoes, beans, kale, herbs, and salad mix. It was awesome and I loved just going outside to pick fresh herbs or grab some kale. Sorry, I wasn't into the blogging thing last year so I didn't take any picts. Yes, it does take some time but the end result is so worth it. For instance, I bought some organic seeds for $3 and each package has 300 seeds. I maybe planted 20 seeds out of this which took me 5 minutes. Then all I have to do is water and wait. Once they have grown enough I will plant them in my garden. This will take a couple of hours. Then all you have to do is water and pull a few weeds out. PS maybe you can even eat those weeds? The end result is food that will keep producing through to the fall. Local, organic, cheap, and nutritionally superior food at your doorstep. Even if you just grow some herbs, give it a try!

I put labels on every row for my watering purposes. Yet, I made a big boo-boo after I made all the labels and lined then up with each row... then I moved the trays from my table to the window and I totally forgot to keep track of which end was which so around half of my labels are guesses...lol. Oh well, I like surprises!

If you want some good resources check your local library as I bet they have tons of books on all types of gardening. For some online resources check out these sites:

• You Grow Girl
• Organic Gardening
• HGTV
• almanac.com

I finally got to watching some of Jamie Oliver's Food Revolution and I really think it is an amazing show. I love how he handles himself in the most hostile and stressful of situations and how great he is with the kids. He is out there making a difference and I think he deserves a huge round of applause for sounding his voice. He doesn't serve strictly vegetarian fare but the fact that he served a 7-vegetable pasta sauce for lunch was a huge step UP from that disgusting pizza that was served for BREAKFAST and lunch...ugh! I was shocked a bunch of times, I shook my head a lot ( Alice and the radio host...grr), and my heart ached for so many of the people on the show. The thing is its not just this small town in the USA who needs people like Jamie, its the entire world! So, I hope that the show inspires people around the world to drive by that fast food joint and make a salad and a stir-fry instead. I know this is not the best of the best but its a step in the right direction and that's what is needed. One step at a time and we can make huge change to the way we all eat. That's how I became the eater I am today..step by step! One thing I think is so, so true is that we've lost that vital connection with food. So many people think food comes from a window in a drive-thru and is eaten in a car, so many people think putting a frozen pizza in the oven for 15 minutes is actually cooking, and so many people think food from a box is normal. For me, cooking has really connected me to food, given me a huge confidence boost, and has helped heal my fear of food. I see beautiful greens and veggies and I know that farmer had to work hard to make them grow successfully. I volunteered at a CSA farm last spring and holy it takes a lot of work to grow organically but it feels so right to be out in the field sowing, weeding, planting etc. I think if more people took one extra minute to look at the box, bag, or bottle and ask themselves if this is something grandma would eat (as Michael Pollan asks), there would be a lot more veggies and other healthier choices being made. Not everyone is going to eat organic..at least not right away..but once they get on the bandwagon of cooking their own food, its only natural that their research will lead them it this direction. I also think if you can grow some of your own food you should do it. It's the ultimate experience when it comes to learning about your food and how it comes about. I think even growing sprouts provides this experience! So, what are you going to grow this summer? Do you feel connected to your food?

I wanted to let you know about another connected area in my life..animal rescue. I read on Andria's site called Veg is Sexy(who was told by Nelly) that The Animal Rescue Site needs help getting donations (AKA clicks) on their site to help feed rescued animals. It doesn't cost you a penny and all you need to do is click on the button that says "click here to give" and that's it. So head on over to The Animal Rescue site and help feed some rescued animals today:)

It's organizations like this one and all the many other animal rescue organizations that are out there that provide for those who cannot speak for themselves. When we adopted Nemo I learned that he had been in the shelter since May of 2009 (we adopted him in March of 2o10). Nearly a year he was fed and cared for by people who simply wanted to do some good:)



Have a wonderful weekend everyone....PS I just made some Superfood Bon Bons...divine!