Days One and Two...

Day One and Two of my 100 day challenge were just that! - A Challenge!
I had a Baby Shower and a Wedding the first day and a Community Thanksgiving Dinner on the second day. Talk about a challenge to find something that I could eat- thankfully there was salad and made from scratch cranberry and apple salad.

It is amazing what a HUGE emphasis our culture puts on FOOD and EATING...it is a social event. You meet with friends for drinks and food... your family reunions and holiday gatherings revolve around fellowship and food...we go to church functions that usually have food, etc... etc... and you get my drift...

...and, as my SBS Shelly has mentioned...it is EXPENSIVE to eat properly!...I am still waiting on the FDA, CIA, FBI, or the Pres himself to lower the cost of fresh foods and raise the cost of the preservative death in a box ones...yeah, like THAT will ever happen. If that happened, we might not have as many health issues and might not have to go to the doc as much or pay the pharmaceutical companies an arm and a leg...and the cycle of viscious money-grubbing continues!

I have learned so far, that I NEED a great juice machine, a food dehydrator and I am not sure what else yet. Good thing my hubby is always wanting to know what he can get me for Christmas and my birthday in February :)

I have also learned that I need to get organized and plan ahead with food prep, so that I can have what I need at my fingertips throughout the work week and not have to "prepare" stuff--- for that is where and when I will fail this challenge for sure, and just grab something that is more "convenient". I am so grateful to Bunny Berry and all of the bloggers at her Raw Fu Blog. I can find so many recipes, tips, and gadgets in order to make this feel like less of a challenge and more like a new way of life. This way, I can do what others who have walked this path before me have done and learn from them in the process. I sort of feel that I am almost walking on a "sacred path" of sorts. Kind of hard to explain the emotional side...almost a spiritual journey, as I am on a quest to find what God has intended for my "temple" that He has bestowed upon me (my body), should really and truly feel like and function.

I don't know that I have ever had that feeling, since I have been eating this way my whole entire 39 years on the planet. So it will be a challenge...but it will be an adventure and a journey at the same time. please keep me in your prayers if you think of me, because that will help me to succeed in my journey and quest to a better me! :)

Thank you... thank you... thank you for your love, support, and kind words of encourgement... they mean the world to me! It's funny if you think about it... to think that some people in the world will ridicule me and try to discourage me from what I am doing...thinking that I am a freak... for merely attempting to eat "the way nature intended", to coin a phrase...oh what a messed up society we live in, folks.

November 15th is nearing....

Well, my lovelies...the day is arriving...November 15th is THIS Saturday!
This is the first day of my Raw Fu 100 Day Challenge. I have some mixed emotions going on right now. I am getting excited, and scared at the same time. Seeing as how my entire house is a cesspool of pre-made, pre-boxed, pre-packaged food...I can see the extra $$ going out already for those vitamin giving,organic,fresh foods. Why does the government or the FDA, or whoever is to blame, make it so damn hard and expensive to eat right???!!

You can go to the grocery store and get great deals and sales on 10 for $10 microwave meals and pre-packaged, pre canned foods...but then you hit the fruits and vegetables aisle, (let alone the greater expense for the organic ones), cost you a full day's pay, your right arm, left leg and signing your life away on some secret document just to be able to pay for the stuff!

"They" preach to us Americans about eating right, exercising, and shove a "new and improved" Food Pyramid down our throats...how about THIS concept???...try charging LESS for the foods that will heal your body and are good for you and MORE for the foods that won't...I mean, come on now people...WAKE UP!!!...don't all those preservatives and chemicals that we can't even pronounce cost a hell of a lot more to manufacture than good 'ole homegrown foods???

OH...I KNOW!!!...we pour $$$ into the Meat and Dairy companies and LESS to nothing for the Farmers who grow the fresh foods...man!...I thought I lived in a messed up world before!!...sorry I am venting and sounding so cynical...but you gotta love a blog...that online "journal" of sorts in which you can use that Constitutional freedom of speech and the right to express yourself! :)...I just hope that doesn't change too with our new President elect. I gotta give one thing to Barack...his political campaign slogan of "A Time for Change" has sure motivated me to make some necessary changes in my own life!

Heaven Forbid... the government sure as heck won't help me do it, in the food world.....okay everyone, I hope to find encouragement along the way in this new venture and on this journey away from "the norm"...sad, really, to think that eating correctly is a venture away from the norm, and not the norm!..I have been putting some blogs under my "Blogs I Love" section and between Bunny Berry, who has graciously allowed me to be brought "into the fold"...and the other bloggers, who are walking that "narrow" path in life...I will find what I am searching for...

I plan to blog each day about my 100 day journey. I will warn you now...plan on some venting, whining, and just plain carrying on until I get this thibg figured out. I am on a quest to feel better, look better, have more energy and possible lose part of myself (the fat part!) in the process.

Wish me luck and say a prayer for me when you read this!

Love and *HUGS"...Shannon

I am feeling better every day! :)

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

For all of your prayers, nice comments and just down right genuine love, care and concern across the globe for me and my family. Your prayers and friendship has been truly appreciated! Donnie's kidney wound has healed and the scab is starting to fall off (gross, I know!)...Paige is almost finished with her meds and spent the night last night again with her girlfriends...I was feeling good enough to have all the girls stay at our house on Thursday night (no school on Friday because of Veteran's Day on Monday)... and I actually got up and went to work on Friday...and I am feeling well enough today to go to my church scrapbook/craft day that I host once a month! Miracles, large and small still do happen and I am thankful that I worship the God of those miracles! :)

I have to get a reader card for our pc to be able to upload pictures; but my friend Deb is gracious and lends me hers once in a while. She will be there today, so I am going to borrow it over the weekend to get some pix uploaded of those recipe and card swaps that I told you I was working on before I caught the epizoodek! )I don't know about you gals(Karyn & Christina), but this cough and stuff seems to be hanging on for all it's worth!...I feel like I am living in one of those Mucinex commercials where the Mucus Family is trying to take up permanent residence!

That is another reason that I am wanting to better myself, both physically, as well as Spiritually. I want to see just how God has created us, internally...I want to see if eating the way that He instructed us to, will really help my body rid itself of years of built up "sludge" and heal itself from the inside out. That is another reason that I am signing up for a 100 Day Raw Food Challenge, over on Bunny's Blog "Raw Fu". (More about that later!)...but right now, my lovelies...I have to scoot on over to the church...it starts at 10 am and runs until we get tired and I lock up (usually around 2 or 3 am on Sunday morning)...any later than that and I might as well forget getting ready to teach Sunday School at 9:45!

Have a great day...and until next time...keep looking upward for your answers...keep on being thankful...keep loving your family and friends and keep on using that glitter!!!! :)

Shannon

It is a Historic Event....

Well folks....it has just been announced since 100% of the polls have reported. For the first time ever an African American has won the race and has become our newest President. Either way we voted, it would have been a decision that made the history books- either we would have an African American President, or we would have had our first woman Vice President. I try to only talk about politics with my closest friends, but I must admit that I am an independent voter who makes educated and prayerful decisions- and for the past few elections I have voted Republican. I too, am ready for a change. I am still not sure that Barack Obama is the change that I am ready for...so I pray the best for him and his family, and for the decisions he will make for our country on the whole...just as I have for every President that I have voted for in the past.

Even though John Mc Cain was soooo old...I just liked, and still do like the guy! And if you watched your television all evening like I did, you have to admit that he gave one hell of a speech to usher in our new President. He definately has class.

Here's to the next 4 years... to a brighter economy...to well thought out and educated decision making from that big White House...and to better days a head. God Bless The President!

You Are Pumpkin Pie

You're the perfect combo of uniqueness and quality. You're able to relate to many types of people with many different tastes. But you're by no means generic or ordinary. In fact, you're one of the most original people around. Those who like you are looking for something (or someone) special. You tend confuse people when they first meet you. But you're not as complicated as you seem. Even though you have a lot of spice and flavor to you, you're never overpowering. You are a calm and comforting force in people's lives.

What Kind of Pie Are You?

I owe...I owe...(Thankfully) to the Doctor (Again!) I Go...

Can you tell that I have a sarcastic sense of humor?? :)

It's not that I am ungrateful...it's just that my daughter has just gotten well and now she has had congestion for over a week and over the counters have done nothing for her and this morning at 4:42 she was in the bathroom puking!...so again, I trudge off to the doctor (this time her Pediatrician)...with my $25 co-pay in hand...(which by the way used to only be a $10 co-pay a few years ago).

I cried out to God this morning,in the only place that I got to be by myself when my kids were little,(the bathroom)...and asked Him to just make my family well!!! PLEASE!!!...it's not that I am ungrateful...because I am of the many, many blessings in my life, and the things that my family and I are able to do that other people aren't....it just gets frustrating and I am getting tired of feeling like we all are walking around in this house, or the morgue of death as I am calling it right now,...carrying the "epizoodic"!!...(Sara, I now know what the epizoodic feels like-LOL!)

I'm not sure about you, but I sure think that the older we get, the harder it seems to be able to get rid of stuff. I never remember getting sick like this when I was a kid! And I even unknowingly tried to become a human science experiment! (more about that for another time and blog entry). I am just one of those people who absolutely despises having to take a pill for what ails me! We have become such a "pill popping" society and culture..."Here, take a pill for this and then oh, by the way, that causes these side effects, so take this pill too to counteract the effects of the first one!"...AHHHHHH!!!!!- will someone just sign me up to have my bikini area waxed and all of my eyelashes pulled out instead!!!????

...and thankful that I have a job and health insurance, that hundreds of thousands of people do not have...and thankful that we are not a "socialist" country and I can choose which doctor I get to see...I will thankfully be standing in line at 7:30 am to see the doctor, who also provides a sick child walk-in clinic every morning before the office opens for regular business hours. They even have separate ares of the building for sick kids and kids who are noy sick...although I have to admit, that has always baffled me...because germs know no boundaries, right!??? So in reality, are we making the well kids sick, or are they making us well?? :)

If anyone else out there is sick right now...hang in there for this too shall pass and we will be celebrating (only I think that comes later after the wellness has settled back in). Well my lovelies...my computer is in the basement in our family room, so I can type (in between coughing and blowing my nose), without waking up the rest of the family. But alas, I just pulled the last tissue out of the box...(this makes box #3 to bite the dust). My other box is in my crafting room upstairs between the bedroom that my hubby is in and the one my daughter is in. If I can sneak in there and am able to create a little without waking them up, I might have some pix to post soon- YEA!!!!!...BTW, I didn't get to craft the other night when I said that I was heading to the hot shower and then to craft...I headed to the hot shower and it drained me so much I headed to bed instead! LOL!...so I am waaaayyyyy overdue to post some photos...which I should have as soon as I get the three swaps finished that I am working on.

Happy November!!!

HAPPY NOVEMBER!!!!

It's the month when we all remember to be thankful for something and despite my venting, whining and groaning about being sick right now...I truly AM thankful that I can breathe now...man do we take that one for granted every day! I feel for all of those people who have to be on breathing machines or hook up to an oxygen tank, or use inhalers...it sure humbles me and brings me back to a "reality check".

I know that even though I get frustrated at allergies, colds, sinus conditions, etc...that there is always someone out there that is a heck of a lot worse off than I am. I am thankful to God that I can walk, talk, breathe, swallow, think, speak and do all of those things that come so naturally and seem so basic to us. They aren't so basic or natural to those who can't do them without being assisted in some way. I know that they would give anything to be able to have my stuffed up nose and congestion...just to be able to be off that machine and breathe better!

So this shout out goes up to You God...my Lord and my Savior...for sending me the best gift that You could ever bestow upon me (Jesus)..let me never forget that He is the air I breathe! :)

As we start to make those Thanksgiving vacation and/or travel plans...let us not forget to be thankful for all the blessings we have in life on this planet called Earth. For the mere fact that I can type this and you can read it, is reason to be thankful...tell your loved ones, while you still have the chance...and they still have the chance to hear you say it...just how much you LOVE them. For we never know if this will be our last holiday that we celebrate together. You may never get a second chance...then again, you might---but what if you don't? There's no sense in setting yourself up for regret that can be avoided.

A spoonful of sugar, makes the medicine go down...

I love that song from Mary Poppins and it really does make the medicine go down...probably because most meds are the most vile and disgusting tasting things on this planet! Our bodies smell or taste them and instantly go into anapylactic shock!! Nooooo, nooooo, I'll be good, really! Just don't send down those gross meds!!! This thought is coupled with the fact that I am allergic to just about every antibiotic on the earth...my doc even looks at me from time to time and asks "So just what CAN you take??" HEllloooooo!!!!! You are the doctor, don't you have it in my chart doofus???!!...but that's okay, I have a list because no one can ever seem to remember! And how the heck would I know what I can take!?--I haven't had to take it yet!!!.... I sure hope that I never have to have any major emergency surgeries!...I don't think one of those life alert arm bracelets comes big enough to fit them all on...unless I want to walk around looking like Mr. T....I pity the fool! :)

At least the RX that I am on is a lovely turquoise color. It somehow makes the pills go down better since the information page from the pharmacy state that is what people take to prevent malaria! Okay, so that made me laugh out loud....is there something about my silly little sinus infection and humming right ear that you want to fill me in on doc???...or is it just about all that you can think of since every other med except Cipro and this so far... gives me an upset stomach,muscle stiffness, a swollen tongue, itching throat and a rash???...Ahhhh, the perils and joys of cold and flu season. I generally get a flu shot every year at work due to my underactive thyroid, which regulates the immune system...but you can't get them when you are sick and the medicine warnings talk about telling your doc BEFORE you take this medicine if you are taking any live vaccines. So this year instead of getting a free flu shot, it looks like I will be searching for one later at a reduced cost somewhere???...that makes me think of those black market underground clinics that you hear of..."Two Dollar Flu Shots! Step right up!!" :)

I have successfully now gone through 3 whole boxes of Puffs Plus and Puffs with Vicks, my nose is now red AND peeling because it is so dry and raw...and when I put some vaseline on it to try and combat the soreness, I woke up the next morning with blemishes and that made it just that much more enjoyable! I tell you...it's one of those rare moments in life that you just have to laugh to keep from crying....it also makes me wonder how my two blogging sisters, Christina and Karyn, are getting along because they are hugging the Puffs tight now too...it just might turn out that this cold season is like a lion....but I am still hanging onto the Lamb! :)

This too shall pass....