Blog / Category_daily live food blog

Well, it's all about the dips and the presentation, isn't it? If you cut the fruit OR the veggies and set them up on a table, most everyone will just start snacking. Add a delicious dip to them and how can they resist? There a dips, dressings and hummus recipes that are raw and delicious and the kids will power them down. My NOT Tuna recipe is my favorite with kids and in that recipe alone, they are eating raw onions, dulse, red or green peppers, and celery!

It's about masking things, sweetening things or making them so beautiful that people (kids included) can't resist. Raw food is so colorful, beautiful reds, greens, purples, oranges - they are so dreamy.

Fruit is MUCH easier to mask than veggies, in my opinion. And with fruit, all I really need to do is just cut it up and put it on the table. It seems that even the idea that the kid has to peel something to eat it is too much sometimes! hahaha I make a lot of things like the NOT Tuna, the raw cheeses, things like my Chick-UN salad and the kids will eat them. I make sandwiches with them so they gobble them right down. With kids, you know, you can't get too spicy or use too many strong flavors (not unless your kid shows favor in that way.)

Letting kids help in the food preparation can help with some kids and it may not be such a great idea with others. My daughter was drinking green smoothies until she saw that I was putting kale in it. Then she stopped for a while. She'll have them now but I guess it depends on the kid. Some kids feel a sense of pride in making something and then will try it. Others see what you are putting in it and go OH NO! NOT ME, I'M NOT EATING THAT!

We also found that in the school setting, most of the kids were pretty open to trying new things. But this depended on majority rule. I saw that if the majority of the kids were favoring to go YUM! then it smooth sailing but the converse happened as well.

Raw and Living food is basically the same thing. A lot of people are wanting to call it LIVING food because raw has such a bad connotation. Look up the word Raw in the dictionary - not very positive definitions.

Raw/Living food is about eating food that haven't been heated above 112 degrees. People who eat this way tend to be vegan although there are people who benefit from raw fermented dairy or raw fish (even some have raw egg yolks but I'd personally need to really be sure the eggs were clean for that although I am tempted to try it.)

Things to eat include: fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, sprouted grains, sprouted legumes, seaweed, super foods, super herbs. It's not just about eating salads although I love my salads more than anything. It's NOT about chewing on raw broccoli or carrot sticks. It is NOT rabbit food. You can get as simplified or as gourmet as you like with it.

The dehydrator is the raw fooder's oven and in it you can make cookies, crackers, breads, tortillas, enchiladas, pizzas, etc. You can warm up anything that you'd like to eat like raw lasagna, raw shepherd's pie, etc.

Raw/Living food can be very rich and all of it bursts with color and flavor and texture. After eating this way for even a week, you'll taste cooked food and it was taste bland and lifeless. To me, a lot of cooked food tastes like sludge, sticky and gooey and not at all appealing although there is a highly addictive quality about it.

You can basically make anything that you made in the cooked food world in the raw food world and usually it's a lot easier and quicker to do. No more standing over hot stoves, no more washing of endless pots and hard to clean casserole dishes. No more burning of food and having to juggle when you make something and have it remain hot while you make something else. My thanksgiving meals are enormous and take me 2 hours to make which includes prep and clean up. I now have time to enjoy with my family rather than cooking and cleaning, etc.

I eat a variety of food and I am a lot less hungry than I used to be. I really feel fed so I don't need to eat as much as I used to. I also am not eating addicting foods so I'm in greater touch with emotional triggers that used to send me to the fridge. The food I eat is minimally processed with no chemicals, herbicides, fungicides, pesticides, flavorings. I can pronounce ALL the ingredients! None of my food comes in boxes and I'm in charge of knowing where the food comes from - most of which comes from my garden or a local CSA.

I make cookies, fudge, puddings, ice creams, pates, dressings, dips, salads, pies, cakes, salads, cheeses, smoothies, wraps, & juices that will kick your asses in terms of flavor and time it takes to make them.

Raw/Living food lasts longer than you'll expect as well. My NOT Tuna lasts 10 days in the fridge. My chili lasts 3 weeks in the fridge. I make a raw nutella that is soooooooo much better than what you get at the store. My fudge is like having a delicious and sweetie vitamin. I make a chocolate mousse pie that makes everyone weep, it is that good! :-)

Think about the saying, "You are what you eat." Living food heals and fuels a LIVING body. Cooked food is dead food and dead food slows you down, makes you sick, gets you addicted and really gums you up inside. When you eat living food for a while, you shift out of old patterns in mind, body and spirit. It's a very fast track to healing and I recommend people do it slowly because it can freak you out if you do it quickly sometimes. It did for me anyway. When you are no longer eating for emotional reasons, you are only left with yourself and that can be scary until you realize you have given yourself the best gift in the world. So sit back, enjoy the ride and start eating something raw in your meals today.

We're on our way home - hoping that we manage through the weather OK. we had a really nice time with family and I got to see an old friend ALL by myself for a fun girl's night out! Not bad for 4 days. I saw my aunt from Washington state - she came here along with other relatives from around NJ and CT for a memorial for my aunt that died last month. It really was a nice memorial service for my aunt Lynne. I couldn't say anything because I was crying the whole time. I saw my uncle - the only boy on my mom's side. He looks SOOOOOO much like my grandfather. It's so cool. I heard lots of stories - some I've heard before and some that were new. It was just really nice to be with everyone and it's too bad that it takes a funeral to get us together...

OK, I'm heading out. More later.

Love and hugs,

Linda

my grateful list for today and always

1. I'm grateful for my kids, who are my greatest teachers as well as gift blessings from the heavens
2. I'm grateful to Matt for giving me said kids :-) - I'm also grateful he's been with me through so much
3. I'm grateful for my extended family - the family that raised me along with the many aunts, uncles, cousins and grand parents that I love so much.
4. I'm grateful for this life journey so far and look forward to more "travels"
5. I'm grateful for my friends, old and new
6. I'm grateful for all life around me, the dirt, the trees, the animals and yes, even the bugs.
7. I'm grateful for the feeling of limitless possibilities
8. I'm grateful for great health in my mind, heart, body, soul and spirit
9. I'm grateful for the earth that is below me and the moon, stars and sky that is above me
10. I'm grateful for the space and peace within me and around me as well as in others.

So mote it be. LOL! :-D Happy Thanksgiving! Linda

I wrote this on the car ride down to NJ. Forgot to actually post it up though! :-) ~~~ Traveling to NJ I'm in the car typing as we listen to a book on tape. We're heading down to NJ to have Thanksgiving with family. I got a phone call this morning from someone placing an order and was wondering if we were having a RAW thanksgiving. I replied and said that we'll be going down to NJ this year - I said that I am bringing 2 raw desserts and plan to make a salad and will take Matt's miso dressing with me so that I'll have something to eat. She asked if I would have anything that other family members would bring and I said that I might have some veggies that will be on the table providing there is no cheese or dairy in them. (For me, dairy and cheese doesn't work well - not even raw dairy.) Later I asked what she planning on doing for thanksgiving and she said the same thing although she finds it rather hard to not eat what others have brought... then she feels bad later on... I hope with this thanksgiving, she will feel good about her day and her choices, no matter what they are. A little bit later in the day, I went to the store on our way out of town and I bumped into a person I know from when we homeschooled our son. Anyway, we got into a brief conversation and she mentioned that a year ago she was trying Doug Graham's 80/10/10 diet and was finding it working well with her. Although, she said, she didn't feel that she needed to follow it so religiously and she feels OK to eat things when she's at other people's houses that she might not at home. She called it "receiving a gift" and I totally agree. To me, it's much more important that things are made with love than whether or not they are 100% raw or not. I don't follow a purist's lifestyle and I never have. I do feel like if anything that I'm doing starts to feel like I'm practicing a dogmatic religion, then I'm probably getting too controlling over it. This is a journey of a life to live, and for me the important lesson is to be gentle with myself. If that means to eat some fruit or a juice or smoothie in this day, then great. If it means that someone wants to give me a gift of their homemade bread, for example, than I accept quite willingly. It *IS* a gift like my friend said at the store - a gift that was made with love and good thoughts and intentions for me or my family. Why on earth would I shun the gift and say it's not 100% raw? That's rather shaming to me although I do understand when a person feels so strongly that they are giving themselves a gift by being 100% raw... Anyway, I feel It is akin to a spiritual practice to be able to receive something with love and grace and gratitude. What a wonderful way to end this post as this is the time of year when we think most about our gratefuls. in love and gratitude, Linda

There's so many conflicting things out there in both the cooked and the raw world. One place says "Don't eat cacao. It's poison" Another place says "OMG! Eat Cacao! It's a superfood!" One place says their cacao is better than the other dude's cacao. Same for the nuts. "Our nuts are of the highest quality - really raw. Don't get those schwag nuts from that dude." Same for the seeds. "Don't eat the white seeds - only the black ones. But make sure they don't come from China..." No green powders unless you check out this other site that says "Yes" to green powders. One place says "No" to greens like kale and chard and "Yes only to greens like micro greens and sprouts." No to oils - we're only supposed to eat as if we were foraging in nature... No to fats. Unless they are good fats like avocados. Other places say "Yes" to a high fruit diet and then you go to another site where you'll read "absolutely DO NOT EAT a high fruit diet." One place says eat whatever you want whenever you want so long as it is raw and other places will say "NO NO NO! Are you crazy? You'll get fat & sick!" It's rather maddening if you are really trying to look for something to help guide you. Some consistency would be nice, right? A few years back I just got rather tired of all the conflicting things I was reading. I used to get quite stressed over it all. And honestly, this isn't just happening in the raw food world, like I wrote above. In the cooked food world it might be even worse. Don't eat meat. OK, eat some of the leaner meats. Eat a high meat diet - well, unless you have high blood pressure or heart problems... Oh but then again if you are a certain blood type, then you want organ meats and the lean meats are not good for you. And then another book or site would go "No, no - vegan is the only way to go. It will safe your life and your earth." How about a lacto-ovo vegetarian? Or a flexitarian? "I'm a vegan that sometimes eats meat and cheese." :-D Coffee is not good for you. Well, actually, coffee can have many good medicinal properties... If you have asthma, coffee can help... If you are producing too much acid in your stomach, then maybe coffee won't be so good. Better try the low acid variety. Or just take this pill... High carbs used to be good - remember the Pritikan diet? High carb, low fat, low salt and very little taste. :-) OK, whatever - it doesn't matter now because high carb is sooo passe. Low carb is the way to go. Or no carb. And make sure you take your vitamins - just not this guys, his are no good. Oh and make sure to put sunscreen on. Oh but now we're finding that we're all vitamin D deficient. Hmm... well maybe we can be outside in the sun for 15-20 minutes without any sunscreen. But no more than that!! Yea, that should be fine... Nuts are good for you. Oh, except if you are pregnant - then your kid might have a problem with allergies or asthma... so forget I said anything about nuts. And tuna is GREAT for you. Whoopsie - wait a minute - there's all that mercury in there. Better not to have that if you are pregnant or young... OR too old... Hmm... well, dairy is good for you. Oh but wait, now we see a possible link with dairy and things like autism and diabetes and eczema, to name a few. High fat diets are fine - remember Atkins? Oh hold on - didn't he die of all these horrible things associated with a high fat, high protein diet? Oh and isn't there new research out showing a link to diabetes and high fat? Hmm... so we're back to low fat being the way to go. But I still want to eat ring-dings and muffins and crap like that. What's that? You've substituted fat with chemical fat replacers? Great! And what about sugar replacers? Got any of those? Artificial sweeteners? OK cool. Now I don't have to worry about eating a high fat and high sugar diet... Oh now wait a minute. What's all this I'm hearing about eating highly processed foods? So what if I can't pronounce the ingredients - there's no TRANS fat in this cookie! OY! What the hell do you want from me?! (Psst: you see why I used to stress over this stuff? I really used to take all this VERY seriously.) I just got to this point when I said, "Forget what 'they' say. I'm going to do it my way." And it's a big experiment. And I'm open to it. That's what life is, right? A big experiment full of choices. "Tell us Johnie, what is behind door number 3?" Now mind you, I still listen - I still read - I still watch what is going on. I'm just not as attached to "the latest research" as I used to be. I read my "Nutrition Action" newsletters that come each month. I read the latest from all the books & newsletters I get from the raw food world. I honestly just feel that it's always going to be confusing if/when we put all our faith in an another person when it comes to what is going on in our own bodies and our own minds. For me, it's important to remember that I've got this wisdom going on inside me that tells me clearly when it likes something, when it needs something and when something is appealing to my emotions more than my state of health. I do keep reading to make sure I'm up on things but I'm so happy that I'm not in that place anymore of needing to know what he/she thinks because knowing that will change *everything* in my diet. Read these raw food forums out there and you'll see what I'm talking about. There are so many postings that people write going "what does such and such have to say about this?" or "thanks for posting this. I definitely won't do that now since you wrote that." or "thanks for posting this. I definitely WILL do that now because you gave it such a good recommendation." It's fine and I'm not knocking it - I'm just saying that when I read these postings or comments, I hear a sense of urgency in a lot of them. And maybe it's because I used to write so many things like this and I used to feel like I couldn't really make a move unless others in the raw food world were doing it first and they said it was OK. You know what I'm saying? I definitely love trying new things and I definitely love offering a wide variety of my favorite stuff but I *SO want people to make up their own minds and eat what they feel works best for them. Otherwise, it starts feeling rather freaky, ya know? Anyway, new subject sort of. If you see me, you'll see that I'm not stick thin. I'm 38, and I was going to write that I'm full-figured although that connotes having a big chest, no? Well, I don't. :-) Since having kids, I weigh more than I would like but I also feel quite good. For me having kids has rocked me off center in more ways than one. I love love love being a mom and it has changed everything in my life. For better or for worse. But really there is "no worse" so it's all for the better. Anyway, I do find that I have gotten into some habits where I have packed on a few extra pounds and I think a part of that is to keep me feeling weighted and firmly planted on this earth. That may sound weird but if you saw me, I'm 6 feet tall. I am much lighter from the hip bones up than I am from the hip bones down. I have a flat stomach but have a big ass, curvy hips and big legs. I've seen some beautiful African art that I look at and go "Damn, I'd be a goddess in Africa! YAY FOR ME!" hahaha Anyway, this is what I mean when I say that my weight is distributed so that I am more attached to the earth than to the sky! :-) For a number of years, I was very upset and worried about how I looked particularly because I believed a lot of what I was reading in these raw food books. I thought I could eat whatever I wanted with raw food because this wasn't food anyway - rabbit food is not food! I thought most of my weight was coming on because of all the pasta and cheese I had been eating in the cooked food world. Right? There's no calories in raw food! It's fruit and vegetables! Well, yes and no. Some fruits are higher in calories than others and I was macking down the mangos and avocados baby! And yes, vegetables are not high in calories but what about all the nut creme dishes that I was making to go WITH the vegetables! Recently I made a raw lasagna with my sister-in-love and we were all eating it. It was delicious and I heard her say that this was "free food" - she was used to doing weight watchers and in weight watchers most vegetables are considered free foods meaning you can have as much of it as you want so long as you aren't heaping tons of dressing on top or whatever. But it's OK to munch on an apple because that's only like a point or have a lot of greens on your plate because that is free. She called the lasagna "free." Well no, it's not free at all. I'll put the recipe on the blog. It's really a great tasting recipe. But you really only need a SMALL SMALL piece of it and have it with a large salad. THIS will fill you up. It's very rich - this SMALL, SMALL PIECE. It's not free food. It's fattening food. And it is food! Rabbit food IS food! But I write this because I totally understand where she's coming from. Most everything has a lot of veggies in it. The marinara sauce, the pesto, the cheezes and the pasta is made from zucchini for god's sake! It's all delicious and it's so much healthier than pulling something out of a freezer and heating it up in a microwave. Or even if you made it "from scratch" (honestly, unless you are making the cheese yourself with the enzymes and the rennet and making homemade noodles from the ground flour that YOU ground yourself along with the eggs and whatever, you are not eating from scratch these days) there's still so much processed stuff in the recipe. So many refined ingredients. So I understand that this raw lasagna dish "FEELS" as is it's free food. "Eat as much of it as you want." I felt this way for a long time on raw foods. I felt like this wasn't really food so I had sort of double up on things in order to feel satiated. Well, it really does take a while to change a habit. Not just 21 days. Not when it's a lifetime of eating. Granted some folks can make a change and never look back but I think a good majority of us eat emotionally in the US and I am certainly one of them. :-) I was JUST reading in this nutrition action letter that said that psychologically, we don't feel like we are eating anything when we get our calories from liquids and so we tend to find ourselves eating something solid after having something like a late or soda or a juice. The letter did say that soup was the anomoly - that we have different associations with soup so we don't necessarily feel the need to eat something solid after having soup. And I agree and disagree with what they said. I agree that for the majority of people eating a primarily cooked food diet, drinking a meal will make you hungrier and probably more likely to eat more or snack more. But after transitioning to more living food, I think a shift happens. It's taken me a while but I really DO feel quite satisfied from a smoothie as a meal. Most of my smoothies keep me filled up quite nicely for the majority of the day. And same for juices PROVIDING they have greens in them. If they have greens in them, then I do feel quite satisfied with a juice for a meal. And even salads. I'm really getting closer and closer to being able to have only a salad for dinner and feeling quite satisfied. I read on one site that there are 3 stages for a live fooder. The first is the gourmet/transitional/dehydrated foods. The second is salads and the third is whole foods. I'm kind of confused by this. Mostly when I meet long time raw fooders, they typically do a lot of liquid meals and sprouts. Are liquid meals considered eating whole foods? I'm also unclear as to how a salad isn't considered a whole food. Because I chop it up before I eat it? But hey, maybe I don't understand because that's the phase I'm in! hahaha Anyway, I really digressed. I started to say that I used to feel quite badly about my appearance. I thought that once I went on raw foods, I'd be just like so many others that would lose weight so quickly that I'd be too thin and worrying about putting on weight. I did lose weight at first. I lost something like 25 lbs or so. And then I plateaued. And then I started to gain some weight back! How horrifying! Right now I am back down pretty much to that initial 25 lbs of weight loss. And yet I still would like to release a few more pounds. 20 would be awesome. That would be a great start. And then a few more. And for those of you who are reading this with gaping mouths as you read these numbers, try living in a six foot frame as a woman. :-) I really do carry weight well. For most people they lose 5 lbs and people notice something. 10 lbs gone and people go "Wow! You've lost some weight!" We're not even in the ball park for me with those numbers. 5 lbs is like having a big pee. NOBODY notices a thing when I lose 5 lbs. My 10 lbs is the average size woman's 5 lbs. My 20 lbs is her 10 lbs. You get where I'm coming from? I know you're reading this going "Wow! You've lost 25 lbs and you want to lose 20 more at LEAST? You must be obese!" - No, I'm not. I am over my ideal weight though. I am tall and I had this tested once: I have somewhere around 145 lbs of bones/muscle. When I was in high school, I weighed on average 145-150 lbs. At one point I weighed 135 and I was very thin looking - my brother said I had a dog's back - all boney but always had the legs and curves so I didn't freak people out. But I'm telling you, the minute I said I weighed 150 lbs, people would go "OMG! I'd never imagine you weighed that much!" or "Wow! You don't look that heavy!" So I stopped telling people my weight. If 150 freaked them out, then anything more would make them faint! :-) Anyway, I'm caring less and less about the number on the scale. It's all how I feel and how I want to feel. In my skin, in my clothes - this is what is important to me. I am taking more walks now. I am moving my body more than I have in years (I had an injury with the last pregnancy that left me rather immoble for *OH* about 6 1/2 years.) :-) I am overcoming many obstacles in my mind, in my environment, in my body. It's very cool. We'll see where this goes. So this is another long post but it feels good to just write. The moral of the story is START listening to that voice inside, that wisdom inside that knows how it wants to be fed - how it wants to be treated - how it wants to feel. And go with it. Shut out the noise that we willingly (or not so willingly) take in and just listen to your silence. There is wisdom in there - wisdom that will tell you what YOU need to hear so that you can make some choices in your life. Whether it be the choice to eat cacao or not to eat cacao - take a vitamin or not take a vitamin - have a piece of meat or not have a piece of meat - how & when to move your body - what weight you want to weigh - how you want to feel and look and be. Really - this really is about being gentle and quiet with yourself so that that inner you can really shine outward for all of us to see. I'm so looking forward to seeing it. Aren't you just so curious?! I'm off to bed. Bless you for reading my ramblings. :-) love and light, Linda P.S. For more info on raw food haps, please have a good read here.

Hi there everyone! Well, we switched over web hosts and for some reason, all the blog posts on the previous server got hosed. I don't understand it because it's still a live site. But I took it as a sign to begin again, fresh. It's been an interesting week for me. Two weeks ago, my son experienced a slight fever and headache and stayed home from school for 2 days. About a week later, my daughter had the same experience and about a day or so after she was in the middle of her resting, I had the same experience! This was absolutely startling to me because since transitioning to live food in 2001, I stopped getting sick! I used to get sick every month which was one of the many reasons I was ready to make a change in my diet/lifestyle. So for years, I have only felt abundantly healthy. I did experience some detoxing symptoms in the beginning - a lot of candida die off in particular, but on the whole have been very very healthy for the past 7 years. So this past week it was amazing to feel a slight fever and a wicked headache and feel totally tired. All I did for an entire day was lay down and sleep. I must say there are some pluses to not feeling well: first being doted on is quite nice! :-) Also there is a lot of wonderful releasing and introspection that occurs (or can occur if we let it) when we are under the weather. For me, it's like nothing else mattered but just resting. And there were very few people I wanted around me and very few things I truly cared about. It's almost like a meditative practice of being in the present moment. I cried a little bit because I just felt pretty lousy and that felt nice. I do believe that release toxins in our tears and so I welcomed each time I felt tears welling up as a way to release what didn't need to be inside. (Better out than in!) :-) The next day I felt much better in my body although this super pounding in my head occurred. I drank teas and had broths and just let myself rest. I made myself some juices with ginger, celery, 1 small beet, 1 apple, 1/2 lemon and a few carrots (mainly because this is what I had) and drank that. The ginger was wonderful - VERY warming for the body. It felt restorative. I got up to make this and then I went back to lay down. It was great not to multi-task and it was great to have this grateful feeling for being unwell. I hope you understand that for the most part, I do feel very grateful for every part of my life. If at first I don't feel happy about a situation or circumstance, I try to then ask "what can I learn from this?" and that *really* helps me to switch my state of mind. If that doesn't work, I'll practice using what I've learned from reading Byron Katie's work. By the end of the day, I was feeling MUCH much better. Got my sassy attitude back which is always a sign that I'm feeling back to normal! hahaha I had planned a trip a few weeks ago to head down to NJ a little early. A lot of my dearest friends live in NJ and most of my family lives there as well so I'm one of a few people that really loves NJ. (I think it took me to move away from it for a while to really appreciate it. NJ CRACKS me up to be honest.) Anyway, I planned to take the train down from VT and as I was feeling much better so I still had every intention to make the trip. Just before bed, I was getting that feeling like I wasn't feeling quite 100% again and yet I went to bed all packed and ready to go. I had a not so great night of sleep. I tossed and turned and woke up at 5 am. I started doing what has been typical and habitual for me throughout my life: I was convincing myself that everything was fine and that even though I wasn't feeling 100% better, I could rest in the train and on and on. All seemingly positive stuff, right? So what was the problem! "Just quit your whining and go back to bed so you can get up, see the kids off and get on the train so you can have some fun, dammit!" :-) So I did the Byron Katie thing by making a statement: "I want to go to NJ tomorrow." Then asked the question: "Is that true?" My answer: "Yes! I want to see my friends and my family and have some time to myself for a few days before my own family joins me for thanksgiving... And then again, No, I want to rest up so I can feel 100% better and do nothing and not be 'on' and not have to worry about traveling & what to eat & how I'll get around without my own transportation..." So then came anther question: "How do you feel with this story that 'I want to go to NJ tomorrow." My answer: "A bit restless and not at all peaceful." So I realized there was a conflict here! So then the next question: "How would I feel without the thought of I want to go to NJ tomorrow?" My answer was: "I'd feel relieved." WOW! I had no idea! What a turnaround! This is what it means, to me, to really be gentle with ourselves and our lives. There was so much self-talk that was telling me that I'm going to have so much fun and all the kinks and unknowns would all work out and I'd get rest, etc. etc. And you know? I honestly believe that that would be the truth. Everything always does work out for the best and I would have found rides to the healthy food store for my juices and salad fixin's and I would have found rides to friends' houses, etc. I totally would have had a blast, I'm sure. But there was this inner voice that said, "I want to stay home," and I totally wasn't even letting that voice come in. Being positive or optimistic also means that it's ok to listen to the reality of one's body or mental/emotional state in that moment. And you know what? While it's true that a very small part of me (the ego part, I realize) felt bummed to have these plans changed, I didn't honestly feel an ounce of guilt or shame about it. I honestly felt relieved and these have been like bonus days for me. Nothing on the calendar purposely because I wasn't supposed to be here so everything became bonuses:

• My friend called and asked if I would join her on her errands so we had fun and laughter as we went into town and back.

• I got my box of Sea Chi items that I LOVE and plan to sell in my cafe/store so I was overjoyed to have my facial creme back (I was out of it for almost a week! YIKES!)

• I stopped by the school at *precisely* the time of a meeting I had forgotten about and heard about all the fun stuff that will be happening for art and dance in the school the rest of this year.

• I got to ask about having my son tested so we can all have a clearer picture on how he learns so the teachers can help him learn things better. (I've been saying for ever that he thinks 3-dimensionally and I've wanted for years for him to be tested so that he can see that his difference means something cool for him...)

• And when I got home, I saw that my daughter was looking a bit under the weather again. She tends to have lungs similar to my husband and when she gets sick, it quite easily goes to her lungs. So I gave her a few homeopathic remedies and things to help her rest without coughing and again, I wouldn't have been able to do that if I wasn't there.

So moral of the story: it's good to be gentle with oneself in every way imaginable! I'd say it's even more important that giving oneself a positive pep talk! The other moral of the story: it's absolutely possible that when conditions are right and germies are around, a live food dude can also get sick! This is what happened to me and so there you go! I just read recently how raw food is considered the panacea for everything - the heal all, be all, end all, etc. The author was saying that he/she felt that they were finally understanding that this wasn't the case necessarily. And well, to that I have to say, "*DUH!*" Of course live food is NOT the heal all, be all, end all of everything! That's just silliness. There are many ways to the truth. Life on this earth shows us that endlessly and in many ways. For me, live food has shown me a way to be healthy and get healthy quickly. It has shown me a path to really find ME. To be gentle and loving to me and in doing so, I'm more able to spread that around in my life and in my work. It's a catalyst but it's not the ONLY thing to get me there and it's not the only way to live. It's been so great for me to learn to heal and be gentle WITH food because for so long food was just a way to stuff down emotions. It makes sense for me that this was the catalyst and I'm able to utilize all my little tips and tricks that I've been learning in my life thus far. I LOVE being able to see how spiritual links with physical life, how emotional life links with spiritual & physical, etc and so forth. It's a beautiful life, a work of art and it's still a work in progress... :-D

OK, that's enough for my first blog post after my old blog got hosed. Thank you for reading. Please feel free to post a comment if the mood strikes you. Take care and much love, Linda