Gifting myself with Juice

I went to bed last night around 11, but could not fall asleep. I stayed in bed for about an hour, then got up, and lo and behold, my body needed to release some matter.....couldn't really tell that while lying in bed, but something was keeping me awake. After taking care of that issue, I of course went over to my computer and got online. Read more juicy blogs, and realized that I really do want to juice feast......that for me it is best. If I do green smoothies, I am more likely to eat cooked food.

I was raw all day yesterday, until the evening, as I had some leftover bean quesadilla in the fridge that was calling my name. It was very tasty, and I only ate half of what was left, which was 1/4 of a quesadilla made like a tortilla sandwich ie not folded over, but with a second tortilla on the top. I really love the Mariposa tortillas I used to make it. They are fresh, and thicker than most. White flour as I just don't like whole wheat pasta, pitas or tortillas. I do eat only sprouted grain bread when I eat bread, but my tortillas etc are white. Or were, as I don't believe I will go back there for a long long time, if at all. I also had a small bowl of cereal before bed. It has become a craving. I use Nature's Path Multigrain Oat Bran Flakes mixed with some Barbara's regular shredded oats (pillow cereal) and fill the bowl with a mix of Rice Dream and Organic Whole milk, with a dropperful of liquid stevia added. It is yum. My favorite desert in all the world (one of them) is a bowl of these cereals, alone or together, with a huge pile of whipped cream on top. So delicious and not overly sweet....and yes, it's dairy....but omg.

So, I woke up this morning, had another bowel movement, did my morning ritual of removing all clothing after the bowel movement, before ingesting anything, no water, nada.....and weighed myself. One half of a pound down. Good. Trying to keep things moving in the right direction. Would love to lose 30 pounds. Even 20 would be great....30 pounds would be awesome. I have this dream of being lithe, thin and fit, strong and full of vitality and joy. That is what juice feasting will gift me with, what I will gift myself with, with juice feasting and raw foods.

Going to the local farmers market today, going to ride my bike in (I do drive a bit of a ways, but just to get to the bike path.) My family usually rides with me, but we are having flat tire issues, and my husband just took an 11 mile run, so he is not that interested in having a bike ride. We have amazing bike paths around here, you can ride on them for miles and miles and miles. Seriously, and much of it is along the creek. We rode in last week, and then on Sunday took another longer bike ride in the other direction. It was great!!! Would love to do 2 long bike rides this weekend as well. Don't see why not!

This morning's juice was made with a large bunch of parsley, a medium bit of dandelion greens, a large amount of kale, almost a full head of celery, some napa cabbage (doesn't give much juice), carrots, granny smith apples (3) an orange and a lemon. It is deliciously tart and green, about 2 quarts....one quart all greens, one quart apples, carrots, orange and lemon.

Whole Foods had organic cilantro on sale, a dollar a piece.....so I bought 4. They are acting like a regular grocery store more and more....making me call them Corporate Foods, which is really what they are. They like to stress how green, local and organic they are, but they carry as much, if not more non-organic produce than organic. And when they have sales of cilantro advertised as 10 for $10, it makes me feel like I am shopping at Albertson's. I greatly miss our local co-op, which went under due to lack of good business sense, biting off more than they could chew, and sadly, lack of support in this town of money. It felt so good to be there, so much closer to the reality of food, life, love. It was a wonderful place. People here have plenty of money, at least many people do, but most of them did not shop there. Many rich people like to live here, it is very nice, the weather is not too extreme, there is alot of natural beauty, mountains, streams, great hiking, biking, rock climbing etc. however most newcomers can not afford to live in the town (us included) as houses start at $500,000.

I like our house, but I don't like it's setting.....I like the relative peace and quiet of it, but it's suburban processed living boringness....with everyone having fenced-in back yards, very few neighbors interacting or even showing their faces save for coming and going. Guess I will have to make an effort to change that. There are some nice people in the neighborhood. Most of them. However there is nothing interesting to explore around here, though we are very close to "open space" but it's only truly open if you are a cow. People are told to keep out. That stinks both literally and figuratively. At least the cows are not around too often, but when they are, they ruin the land. There is a hill that is used for sledding when it snows, and it had a bit of vegetation on it, (the land is clay, semi-deserty, not much growing on it anyways) but now it is totally barren and eroding.

I wish I could float all of the cattle and all of the pigs up into space, as I think the earth would heave a giant sigh of relief. There are far too many of them on the planet. Way more than people, and the growing and the processing of them uses up way way way too many resources, not to mention all of the pollution they cause. Something overlooked by Al Gore in his book about global warming. They really do have a huge, significant impact.

I have some goals for the summer. One is to start a compost pile, the other is to really work our garden space, do more than basil and tomatoes, sunflowers and weeds. Another is to really take a look at our waste, what we throw away and try to reduce it as much as possible. Recyling is great, but not having it, producing it, in the first place is best. Much of our waste is plastic, the great number one, then glass jars and tin cans. We eat alot of canned beans. Use lots of jars of pasta sauce. Plastic comes with everything....and then there is paper....lots of junk mail.... kids school papers, etc. We don't take a newspaper, so don't have that daily waste, and I have tons of cloth bags that I use faithfully, and I have even started remembering to bring plastic bags to reuse when I buy produce, but I just cringe when I see what we have. And we have less than many people! So....enough lofty goals for one post. Off to enjoy this beautiful day!

The bike ride in to the Farmer's Market was wonderful, the bike path is lined with all kinds of green things growing, which I was eying as I rode by, wondering how many of them were edible greens that I could harvest to help lower the cost of my juice feast. I didn't see much I recognized, maybe one area that has tall dandelion greens, lots of thistles and other plants I don't know. There are also some beautiful blue/purple flowers blooming...look a lot like phlox, but I don't know if that is what they are.

Met my husband and son down at the Market, walked around, lots of yummy greens, spinach, arugula, lettuces, malvia ? a salad green, and lots of plants. Herbs, flowers, tomatoes, etc. I bought a large bag of stir fry greens for juicing, a large bag of young lettuces and 6 young parsley plants for our garden. Then, I took my son's bike to the bike shop to get the tire fixed and the gears adjusted. I love the bike shop. They are nice and very helpful, a local business. Naiche's tire had a goat head thorn poking through it into the inner tube, so that was removed, and this time (as he seems to get flat tires often) I bought the really thick, elephant hide inner tube. Hopefully that will end his flat tires. He rode his bike back to the parking area outside of town with me and Liam met us there.

Then we went and picked up Dakota and his bike, which also has a flat tire, but it stays inflated well enough when you put air in it....and we came home to water everything, make juice and dinner. They are eating pita pizzas..homemade and delicious...and I first made a fruit juice using a quart of strawberries, and 3 oranges. It was yum but afterwards I felt tired, so made some more green juice with a full thing of cilantro, a good helping of dandelion greens, 2 large stalks of broccoli, some celery and 2 Pink Lady apples and a few carrots. Getting quite low on carrots and apples so have to keep some back for tomorrow mornings juice. This juice is tart and green and slightly bitter but still very tasty. Keep feeling like I need to poo, but nothing quite there. Suppose an enema would help, but don't feel like doing one. I do take a double dose of fiber every morning....one scoop of Dr. Natura's Colonix fiber, and one packet of the Blessed Herbs toxin absorber...which is also fiber, clay, herbs, etc. I keep looking for those rubber tubes to come out, but so far, nothing much like that. Not sure what is up with that....is it all stubbornly clinging to the walls of my colon or what? But I will persevere, and time will tell.

In the meantime, long winded post that this is, I wanted to mention the sheer magic of juicing and being 100% raw, which I started feeling again today. Lots of synchronicities, lots of mellow thoughts and feelings, I bought something, my total was $7.77. I bought gas, and I got exactly 22.222 gallons, and the person before me had paid $67.17 and gotten 17. something gallons of gas. 17 and 22 are numbers that I gravitate towards and that gravitate towards me. I see the number 17 absolutely everywhere. So, very glad to be feeling the magic, and this is my magic thought that keeps me juicing......that if I keep it up, the magic will only increase. I don't want to lose the magic. So....if you have read all of this either you are truly bored or an avid seeker. Either way, welcome, and do say hello. It is nice to know when and if anyone is reading this.

Ciao bellas!

Alessandra