Sweet Talk Yourself: Exercising Self Compassion

My time in therapy gave me two important tools to for dealing thriving in life: mindfulness and self compassion.  Today I will share with others about self compassion and will discuss mindfulness at a later date.

Most people are honestly too hard on themselves.  If you just thought, "Me?! Uh, no, I am not hard enough on myself." -this is for you!  When my therapist noted that I was being too harsh with myself (expectations, sense of failure, self evaluation, etc.) my first response was that I was not hard enough on myself.  I thought, clearly she doesn't know who I really am! I am such a failure! I am lazy and a pathetic excuse for a mother! As I let the thoughts travel on the road of self loathing I began to see how I was too hard on myself.


My therapist showed me how being too hard on myself was keeping me from realizing what I was wanting most: to do a better job; to be a better me.  All the time I failed to improve, change and reach my goals I felt discouraged and just mentally beat myself up.  All I could do is hear the "you're not good enough" voice taunting me. And the voice was doing me nothing but harm.  She gave me a new way to process my shortcomings that has been very helpful.  I hope in sharing all this, it will help others. 

My therapist taught me to sweet talk myself whenever I mess up.  She argued that if I am focusing on self-shaming I would never be able to address the issue and make a positive change.  It made sense, whenever a child does something wrong they hide.  I realized (with some time) that all the time I thought I was doing well to chastise myself for my failures, I was really just hiding.  Only when I could face my wrong doing could I begin to change and by shaming myself I was staying hidden, tortured, but hidden.  I realized that no matter how I tried to get myself to change, it was not working and the negative self talk was getting me only farther from where I wanted to be.  I gave my therapist's suggestion a try and with time found it very effective.

It is not my nature to sweet talk myself, but it is getting easier the more I practice it.  Such a simple thing to do in theory can seem impossible to someone who is so used to bashing themselves for every mistake, but I promise it is worth trying.  It works like this: after you mess up or fail to do something/not do something you review it with yourself by making kind comments like "given the fact that ______ it is no wonder that I ________." If you truly assess the situation with a kind tone, I guarantee you will be able to face what you did wrong (and right) and you will be able to see things you could not see before: patterns; causes for the issue; what to do differently next time; etc. At first it may seem more painful than the self shaming way of "handling" things; facing ourselves can be hard, but never harder than living in a vicious cycle of failure and self hatred.

This exercise works well in many areas, but I mainly struggle with feeling like a failure as a mother.  I will write about this specifically, as I know this is a huge issue for many mothers.  Motherhood is hard and it is easy to feel like a failure, every hour, even!

Rockwell Turns 2

Rockwell just celebrated his second birthday.  We had a low-key celebration, just the way I like it for a 2 year old.  I made him a fun construction site themed birthday cake and he got a large Caterpillar brand dump truck.  Between the chocolate cake, the dump trucks and balloons he was quite the happy birthday boy.  He did not know it was his birthday or that we were making him the center of attention, but he had a lot of fun, none-the-less.

Here's a video of us singing "Happy Birthday" to him.  Notice his confused look as his sisters try to get him more excited during the song.  Also, Alex held the ipad during the song so my dad could watch via skype.

 Earlier in the day I took the kids to Starbucks before getting some decorations for his birthday dinner & party.  Rockwell loves LOVES cake pops so we just had to have an impromptu birthday celebration with cake pops.

Construction Site Birthday Cake How To

Today I will share how I made my son an easy and fun construction site themed birthday cake.  There are many ways in which you can make a construction site cake, believe me: I spent a few hours pinning ideas from Pinterest.  :) I suggest you first find whatever construction vehicles you wish to use for the cake (they can be brand new or preloved ones).  I would make sure they are of similar look and scale -otherwise it won't look right, at all.  When I went on the hunt for vehicles I found at Caterpillar brand set of 4 for $9.99 at Target, but I thought they would be far too small (they were of the Hot Wheels scale).  I chose two plastic trucks for $1.99 each in the sand and water play section.  They were larger, but not very big, in fact I wanted larger trucks.  I am glad I did not get bigger trucks, because when I made the cake I realized how big the cake was NOT in comparison to the trucks!  So I got creative and decided not to limit myself to the surface of the cake for the placement of the vehicles.

Once I gave myself permission to not stick to the surface of the cake I was able to have fun and make it work for the size of the cake.  Here's an image of the finished cake (please note that I didn't go all out for size and "fancy" because it was just for our immediate little family.

To make the cake I did a "doctored up" box cake recipe.  I used two boxes of Duncan Hines and two packages of chocolate pudding.  Recipe here.  Once I baked the cakes and they were cooled, I put gummy worms and pudding between the layers (I used an additional package of pudding mix to make pudding).  I was inspired by "dirt cups."

I cut the cake down a bit and took a big chunk out in a corner to make it look like it was dug out by the claw part of the one truck (I clearly don't know the terms).  I frosted the cake with a homemade frosting with black dye to give it an asphalt look.

Next, I crumbled the cut off cake pieces and mixed it with pudding, crushed Oreo cookies, some extra frosting and some rock candies that I purchased at our local Winco store.  I filled the dumping part of the dump truck with some of the mix and stuck the candle in the "load."

I put some of the mix by the "dug out" area to look like it was torn away from the "construction site."

 I decided to make it look like the dump truck dumped out the number "2" on to the cake.  I used the rock candies to highlight the crushed Oreo "2" I put on the cake (it was not showing against the very dark frosting).

Some more images of the cake:

Some things I would do differently next time (I may make another construction cake for his 3rd birthday when I plan to throw a party for him):

I would make the cake much larger and use smaller scale construction machines. I would make a few tiers too.

I would make the frosting less dark and maybe just a chocolate frosting OR make it look like grass with green frosting piped like grass or green tinted coconut.  

                              

Lastly, I would not use gummy worms in the layer (good idea, not so easy to cut and not so tasty with the pudding -gives it as weird taste like there is fruit juice in the pudding).

Some cakes I found on Pinterest that I got inspiration from:

Update on my Garden Ventures

Earlier this year I wrote about my past attempts at gardening and shared that I was going to give gardening another try.  This entry will be brief in words, but embellished with images.

A friend and I went in on the garden together (Alex built us each a 4'x4' "Square Foot Garden" planter box).  We split costs 50/50 and for about $100 each we had our planter boxes and honestly too many "started" plants.  We started too late in the season to try from just seed.  Next year I plan to save money and start from seeds.  

The truck bed was their pre-garden bed :)

First days in the garden bed.  It looked so nice and tidy and I went against some of the advice in my Square Foot Gardening book and put more plants in the bed than suggested.  I was warned by the book of the growth rate of my zucchini and squash plants and gardening friends told me that they would quickly grow and take over the garden. 

Almost 30 days later, the zucchini and squash began to really GROW!!! The tomatoes were growing at a very rapid rate, as well.

Day 1, taken April 19, 2014

Nothing like a frozen treat while mom plants a garden :)

Taken May 13, 2014

Yellow Crook-Neck Squash plant w/flower

potato plants I grew from cuttings -but as of this post, I cannot see evidence of them anymore -I think the jungle of tomatoes caused them to fail or the heat -or I just cannot see them???

Our second cucumber :-)

Taken May 25, 2014

Zucchini Plant close ups

This was my 3rd cucumber and it grew overnight! Notice it still has it's yellow flower still attached?

HUGE zucchini and some of the first tomatoes, one yellow neck squash,  two banana peppers, one tomitillo, and one cucumber -Harvested June 7, 2014

Lots of tomatoes -harvested July 1, 2014

Spotted a baby watermelon!!!!! July 1, 2014

Yesterday, as I harvested tomatoes I thought to myself, "I need to update my blog on my garden!" The rest of these images were yesterday!

I think I have a few tomatoes ;-) I had one in a spinach salad -so juicy and TASTY -no dressing needed!

Unfortunately, my once tidy garden bed be came a jungle.  We had bad winds and most my tomatoes blew into the garden and wow!!! They. Took. Off. EVERYWHERE

The best looking baby melon I have -one I already cut off vine -it was looking like nothing more than a water waste.

This was not even the biggest heirloom tomato!

I will do another update when there is more to report!

High Carb, Low Fat Roadblocks & Stumbling Blocks

Roadblocks: you have a destination in mind and they stand in your way, diverting you, delaying you and almost always leave you completely frustrated.  If you are in a new area they can scare you and leave you lost.  And if you are running late they can be utterly infuriating!  They are definitely "plan changers" and if you cannot find a way to adapt you will never make it to your destination and the roadblock becomes a stumbling block. 

Yesterday was supposed to be my first day of my 30 days 100% raw vegan, high carb, low fat plan.  I had two roadblocks: I was ill and my blender quit 3 seconds into my second smoothie of the day.  I did not allow feeling ill to stop me, I just decided to take the day easy and go lightly on the fruit (I was having terrible bowl and stomach pains and even bad heartburn -something I don't usually experience).  When I had put everything in the blender for a lunch time smoothie I was quite frustrated to have nothing planned to eat as a back up and I was feeling quite hungry (it was about 2 PM and I had only had two bananas in my morning smoothie).

After several attempts to fix the blender I gave up on the smoothie idea and gagged down two too-ripe-for-me bananas.  The plan says to eat fully ripe bananas for better digestion in general and for the fructose.  I like my bananas when they are perfectly yellow; pre-browning stage, though that is the ideal stage for smoothies and baking. 

Not long after I decided to make a dinner of brown rice and black beans.  I held on to raw until the idea of just eating browning bananas grew too unappealing.  When Alex got home he tried the blender and got it working in just a few tries! I was elated and took my to-be-blended fruit out of the fridge and whipped up a dessert of two bananas, about 6 strawberries and water.  Overall, I had a good day, but did not succeed in sticking to a fully raw day.  I had a raging headache by 4 and also made a small amount of coffee and had a small amount of non dairy creamer.  I am aiming to not regularly ingest caffeine, but have decided to slowly reduce the coffee intake because I am addicted to it and I feel like keeping just this one "favorite" will help me as I am feeling overwhelmed by so much change to my diet right now.  Either I am making a wise choice or I am just making excuses to not quit coffee, just yet. ;-)

Today I was all set to really rock this first day!!! I drank about 2 liters of water in the morning (so much more than I usually do, first thing).  I had to drink it slowly, if I drink water too fast it makes me extremely nauseous, much like any amount of water consumption did when I had HG.  By the time I finished with my water I was really looking forward to my smoothie.  I was feeling much better than yesterday and had a better appetite, too.  I decided to do a 4 banana smoothie and was getting ready when I discovered another roadblock: the blender refused to perform for me, yet again.  I nearly cried.  Seriously.  I really dislike loathe what I call "over ripe" bananas.  And I am quite tight on my budget and planned to use the frozen fruit I had in my freezer to stretch me through next pay day.

I refused to give up so easily, despite it feeling like a non-detour-able roadblock.  I had some coffee and a yellow banana and plotted my "alternate route."  I passed by our new trashcan several times, noticing it needed to be emptied and remembered that we had discussed returning it to Costco because it was a poor design and the motion activated sensor part was -just weeks later- not working right.  "Light bulb!" I announced to the kiddos that we were going to buy fruit and I cleaned up the trashcan and put it back in it's box.

Here's a picture I took of my cart just before loading it into the trunk:

I'd call the trip a great success except for one small derailing of my eating plan: when I got my kids food at the food court I ordered myself a frozen coffee drink (which has milk in it).  OOPS! I could have thrown it away, but I did not.  In fact, I enjoyed every drop of it.  Not going to lie!  Tomorrow is another day.  I refuse to allow my tendency to have "all or nothing" thinking ruin this for me.  My positive efforts are not erased by mistakes or deliberate breaking of the rules.  For some allowing "cheats" would derail them, indefinitely. But, for others, having a "all or nothing" mindset poses a greater risk for derailment.  I am usually very good at being extreme and perfectionist at new endeavors, but then giving up completely at a first-offense mistake.  I am delighted that I am not giving up because of a coffee drink or giving in to an urge to call myself a failure for it. 

Frustrations & Learning from Past Faliures

The other day my five year old, Grace, had a huge meltdown at the grocery store.  Full on tantrum with screaming at the top of her lungs.  I didn't tell her "no" to something, but I told her I would not agree to letting her have her OWN package of cookies that were identical to what her sister had picked out.  She had to have her very own package and insisted on it being exactly her way.  I am a seasoned veteran to the "choose your battles wisely" motto of parenting.  I calmly explained that I was fine with her picking a different kind of cookie, but she would be sharing them.  She lost it.  Flat-out, lost it in the bakery department.  I gave her a moment to recompose and again stated, "we don't need two packages of the same kind of cookie.  If you want something different you may choose a different one for us all to share." I was in a hurry and hungry and I knew Alex, my husband, was waiting for us at home (and I was bringing lunch).

A perfect storm was brewing right there in Vons.  Hungry, feeling stressed, rushed and quite embarrassed by a screaming child, I gave it one more try.  "Gracie, I am giving you 30 seconds to pick another type of cookie to share.  I am in a hurry and cannot stand here all day waiting for you to pick something."  Gracie seemed panicked and tortured and I could see her shutting down with the pressure I put on her.  Frustrated with myself, the "you are such a pathetic mother" voice grew louder.  Hands on my hips I said, "10, 9, 8, 7, 6..." By 1 I grabbed her hand and said, "Sorry, we need to go now." She dropped to the floor and screamed so loudly I can only imagine an old man ripping his hearing aids out of his ears on the opposite side of the store (I can see him opening a door in the freezer section to be startled nearly into heart failure as her screams began to assault his normally straining ears). 

As I neared the checkout area I got in close to her and firmly said in her ear, "So help me God, if you don't shut up I will spank you so hard when we get to the car." As you guessed, she only began to cry harder and scream more.  All eyes were on my child and I felt as if everyone was taking bets on who would come out the victor in our battle.

The lines were long and I had to do my best to restrain a thrashing child and soon Rockwell began to protest his confinement in the shopping cart.  I had a moment of clarity.  I took a deep oxygenating breath and picked up Gracie and held her in my arms.  I just rocked her in my arms while picking up Rockwell, too.  I reminded myself that they were not giving me a hard time, but they were having a hard time.  And, if anyone was giving anyone a hard time, it was me who was giving Gracie a hard time. 

She did not stop her tantrum, but I had certainly stopped mine.  When it was my transaction's time, the cashier asked the generic, "How are you today, ma'am?" I replied, "other than tantrums, I am fine, you?" He told me about his niece having a similar tantrum earlier that day because her new toy broke.  He said, "Nothing I said worked, I even promised to buy her a new toy!" I reflected, "It's hard to deal with disappointments and frustrations." Wisely he said, "yeah, even as an adult I can get stuck when I don't get my way."  "Yes, I must admit, I certainly throw tantrums too -they just look different that this," I said, exhibiting my flailing five year old. 

It's important for me to look at this sliver of time in my parenting adventures.  There were a lot of things I did wrong, but also a lot that I did right.  Most importantly, I did not exhibit love and respect to my child from the start.  I put us all in an unnecessarily stressful situation.  I know my child gets overwhelmed and I could have been much more helpful to her.  I also need to do a better job of not allowing myself to get so stressed out (and hunger is a big stress contributor for me).

I did follow up on the whole ordeal with Grace and owned my wrong doings.  She apologized and we had an overall good talk with lots of hugs and we came to a better place in our relationship, as a result. 

I faced a great deal of frustration and felt like throwing a big tantrum earlier today, but I reviewed some things with myself and asked myself to look at the big picture and asked hard questions of myself.  I am happy to say I didn't throw a tantrum and I was able to work through the frustration and press on for the goal I am seeking.  I'll write more about this in my next post.

High Carb, Low Fat, Vegan Lifestyle

In my last post I stated that I fell off the vegan wagon while traveling for a funeral and had a hard time getting back on track.  I also began to gain back the weight I had lost from my time on a 100% vegan diet which really depressed me.  I went on the vegan diet for a multitude of reasons, but I would be a bold-faced liar if I didn't admit that weight loss was not a top reason.

Exploring more into why I so easily fell off the vegan diet that I was enjoying and why it took me so long to get back on, I have concluded that I need to have: more flexibility and options for eating out; more self-compassion for any breaks in vegan eating; and more carbohydrates -preferably sweeter things, as I broke my vegan diet for sweet pancakes and have stayed away indulging in ice cream and decadent coffee drinks.

I believe I have found my solution: High Carb, Low Fat, Vegan Lifestyle!!!  I never ever knew that I could eat a high quantity of carbohydrates and not pack on the pounds.  In my mind carbs have always equaled packed on pounds.  Even more, I have always known that if I ate over 1,200 calories in a day I would not be able to lose weight.  And I am never satisfied with such a little amount of calories.

I recently stumbled upon a youtube video by a youtuber that goes by the name, "Freelee The Banana Girl." After I got past the shock of her eating habits (she eats an excessive amount of bananas!) I began to think about what she had to say about how important carbohydrates are for our cells and for our brains and when we deprive ourselves of abundant carbohydrates we are in essence starving our bodies and set us up for failure on diets that are carbohydrate restrictive.  But, to be clear, when I say "abundance" I mean an amount that is just short of absurd. ;-) 

Freelee explains that she had a background of anorexia, bulimia and a sprinkling of health issues.  Though I have never suffered from anorexia or bulimia, I connected with her weight gain she experienced post anorexia.  After starving for nearly 9 months during my HG pregnancy with Rockwell, I experienced a steady weight gain, accelerated by medication that causes weight gain.  As I type these words, I am miserably over weight and nothing less than obese.  I hate typing that.  Hate it, tremendously.  But it is a fact.  Denying it has only gained me more fat around the middle. 

In keeping with what I have been learning to practice in therapy I must remind myself that I did not ask to starve for nearly 9 months, I did not ask to have a body so weakened by a debilitating pregnancy disease, and I did not ask to have PTSD and postpartum depression and a drug that not only aided in my weight gain, but that I had a bad reaction to and left me with months of vertigo, among other things.  I have my part to play in my obesity, but I am not just a lazy fat slob (even if the negative voice in my head tells me that I am).

So back to this high carb, low fat vegan plan.  I decided to give it a try.  It flies in the face of all that I have known, but I also know that what she says makes sense to me.  I am not sure if it will work for me, but what do I have to lose?

What is the plan?  From what I am gathering there are several variations of the eating plan, but in general it is a high fruit diet and women are supposed to eat at least 2,500 calories of mainly fruit and other carbs like cooked potatoes, rice and other grains.  There are versions in which you only eat raw -no cooked foods and there is a focus on simple food pairing (like smoothies of bananas and kale or bananas and mangoes).  Some strive for an 80/10/10 eating plan: 80% carbohydrates; 10% fat and 10% protein.  The Banana Girl diet runs more like 90/5/5. 

I am going to try it for 30 days, completely raw, but am okay with modifying it if I don't feel like it works for me or I just need more flexibility.  Like I said, I don't have much to lose -beyond unwanted fat and health issues I am beyond sick of suffering from.  I have a lot of digestion issues, among other things, and I am excited by the fact that many who have followed this eating plan have found improvements in their digestion. 

I am excited to try this diet -at any level I can, as I know it will be healthy and that it has the potential in helping me to lose this excess weight.  I am hopeful that with some time eating at higher calorie diet -but one that is low fat, high carb will retrain my body to stop holding on to every calorie it consumes by letting go of its "fear" of starvation. 

Fell off the Vegan Wagon

Things were going well on my vegan journey until we went out of town for a family funeral.  I tried to be prepared and got some packaged vegan energy bars, but the first night away when we finally got to our destination and were extremely hungry (it was about 10 PM) and I felt shaky and cranky and when we got to IHOP by the hotel I totally caved and had a totally dissatisfying German pancakes dish.  It really was awful and I felt stupid for breaking vegan for such a non-tasty meal.  I was sure I'd be strong the next day, but Rockwell (our almost 2 year old) had slept too much in the car on our trip and was totally thrown off his sleep schedule.  I was up with him past 2 am and just so emotional and exhausted that when he finally did sleep, I could not fall asleep. We had stopped at the beach while traveling to the hotel and the kids were quite dirty so I bathed them when we got to the hotel, but decided to shower in the morning -my typical mom-mode: kids needs first and irrational thinking lead by exhaustion.  I was so tired when the alarm kept rudely yelling at me to wake up that I ran out of time to secure a vegan breakfast before the funeral.  We drove to a Carl's Jr. on the way and I inhaled an egg and cheese biscuit.  I remember thinking, yet again, that it was not that tasty.  I felt like a failure.  Funerals are emotional.  It was just my great grandmother's birthday (she passed away in 2003 -so it had been 11 years since her passing- but her birthday is always a reminder of her life and the joy she brought me).  The funeral was for my husband's aunt, who was similar in character to my great grandmother -such a sweet and loving person.  I remember looking up at the ceiling at the church to distract myself, seeing my husband's cousins fighting their tears in the pew in front of us was more than I could take at that moment.  I knew their pain.  I felt it.  I didn't want to be in that church.  I wanted to be on avoidance island. 

Following the funeral and burial services there was a reception with loads of non vegan food. My thoughts were pretty much the following: "well, I have broken vegan already, might as well just eat what looks good." And eat I did!!! I ate healthy stuff, but lots of CAKE.  That was one thing that seemed worth the "cheat."  I have a serious sweet tooth. :)

After returning from our trip I was certain I would quickly get back on the vegan wagon.  But I did not ever get fully back on. 

Why???

I am not really sure.  I am certainly convinced it is better for me.  I am also convinced it is do able and I had already about two weeks of success on the diet and felt great on it.  I forget exactly how much weight I loss, but it was about 7 lbs!!!!!

I have theories of why I never got back to it for so long, but all I can say is it is clear to me that there was something missing for me to fall off so easily (and to stay off so long).  Briefly I think I was too stressed out to make proper decisions and too hard on myself for falling off.  One thing I have learned from therapy is to have more self-compassion.  I will certainly blog about that very subject another day!  I also think that the element of something missing is a key area to explore.  I think I have found that missing element: fruit.  Yes, fruit and carbs in general.  All I have ever known is that carbs make people fat.  But do they? I am going to pick up here in my next post: High Carb, Low Fat, Vegan Lifestyle. 

A Fork in the Road

As I sat in my living room last night sobbing and feeling hopeless and powerless to help myself I saw a spiritual "fork in the road."  I could choose in that very moment to have the full-blown mental break that has been stalking me or I could put it in its place, once and for all.  I could stand there, look it in the face and say, "No.  I am not going with you.  I will fight every step I take until the day I die, I will never go your way.  You cannot have me."  The time was "now" right then, to make the choice, the defining moment for me happened just hours ago.

I knew I had to trust God.  I had to believe that He was not calling me to the path that Satan could not wait to have me on.  God was calling me to stop hesitating and to cut ties with that path. I could no longer allow my thoughts to wander down that path.

After I had a good cry.  After I vented my greatest fears and frustrations.  I made a plan.  I told Alex what I needed help with and I told him my plan for today.  It was well past midnight so I said, "later today, after I've slept and wake up, I have to focus on 3 main things: I need to clean this house; I need to figure out a detailed daily schedule we can all stick with; and I need to have a heart-to-heart with our girls."

Anyone reading this who feels concerned or worried, please know that I feel certain I will be okay and that I am finally on a good path.  It's going to take a lot more up-front work, but I know I have it in me to make it happen.  I've lost too many years to illness, unfortunate circumstances and hardships that kept me from meeting my full potential as a human being, a wife, a mother and a child of God.

I have a very clear picture of what needs to be done, what needs to be thrown away and what needs to sit on the "maybe later" shelf.  Now that I have my head more organized, it is time to get my house organized!

Just a note on a different topic: I am now on my 12th day of being 100% vegan.  Not sure if I am going to stick at the 100% level, but for now I am working on being vegan for a month without any exceptions, to see what I think of it, how I feel, etc.  So far, so good.  We did have a stomach virus this week, so I didn't each much of anything, but when I did feel hungry it was not too hard to remember to not go for something non vegan that I tend to crave, but to eat carrots and humus or to sip on a green smoothie.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

A funny story about me: When I was in middle school, 7th or 8th grade, I decided one day to plant a garden.  When I came home from school, I went to the garage and got a shovel and a hoe and got to work.  When my great grandmother came home from work (I mostly lived with her by then) I showed her the big area of her backyard I dug up.  I said, "I'm planting a garden.  I need seeds."  Being the awesome grandma she was and loving me as she did, she did not yell or get mad (as far as I knew) and after dinner we went to Home Depot and got seeds.  I am not sure why, but everything we planted did well and flourished.

I am not sure (I cannot recall) why I only did the garden one year.  But I remember it well.  The beans and the lettuce and the carrots.  I was convinced I was a gardener and blessed with a green thumb.  Years later I got my first home and wanted to plant a garden, but it was not a good sized yard (quite pathetic, actually).  I held off on starting another master garden.  When we lost that house and began renting the house we are still in, I decided to grow a garden.

With confidence lingering from my one and only garden roughly 20 years in my past, I set out to grow enough food to save us a ton on groceries.  I read up on methods and all the how-to's.  The soil in this yard was terrible and I got no where after an hour's hard effort to break the soil up.  I went with a raised bed method.  Over a $100 later, I had two kiddie pools with sand on the bottom, drain holes, expensive soil and seed packets with potential to feed a small nation.  It was a disaster.  I failed miserably.  My green thumb ego took a huge blow.  Only the gazillion bugs who found my garden, ever got a taste of my labor.  Angry and feeling stupid (I really talked up my gardening skills to my skeptical husband) only to waste the little money we did have after losing our home.

I decided recently to try again.  This time I am humble (even prayed before putting a single plant or seed in the ground).  And as I have been working this new garden, and sharing my funny impulse garden from my youth, I have begun to think a lot about how that garden grew so well.

Was it superior soil?  -Maybe I had pH balance off in my last attempt, but when I was a kid, all I used what was in the ground there.
Was it a better climate? -Maybe, though the weather here and there are not that different.
Was it superior seeds? -I think I can say, "no." ;-)

One thought that keeps swirling around is that I bet my grandma did a whole lot more than I even knew about.  All the time I thought it was ME, it was probably her.  It has me thinking a lot about myself as a parent and about myself as the child (and God as my Father).  How much do my kids think they are "all that and a slice of pie!" and how much do I?  How does your garden grow?

Click here to see an update post on my garden!

Why go Vegan? Why a Plant Based Diet? Part I

There are many reasons for going on a plant based diet or becoming a vegan.  I am writing this post to organize my thoughts and to share with others what I have learned and how I see it playing out in both my life and the life of those around me.  I know some family and friends will, with great care, be concerned about my choices and I want to show them I appreciate their concern and am thoroughly looking at both my options and my reasons for a plant based diet.  I am going to have to break this up into several posts.  Organizing the posts by the following areas of reasons for choosing a plant based diet and for avoiding animal products seems most logical to follow and for me to compose:

• animal cruelty
• human rights violations (including physical dangers and issues like indentured servitude) 
• dangers to the consumers
• negative environmental impact
• jeopardized health of meat and dairy consumers

 *Because these areas are interrelated, I will not be fully separating them as I write these posts, but I will do my best to make it easy to follow and easy to find an specific argument you are interested in or would like to challenge.  ;-)  I will make the above bullets hyperlinks as I publish each post.  This post will focus mostly on the first bullet: Animal Cruelty and why I care about it.  Let me quickly say that I have a lot of links in this post to see images or learn more about this issue.  No image I link to is graphic or terrifying to look at.  There are plenty of images and videos that are gut-wrenching and you can easily find those on your own.  I will advise, though, that the links I share may have videos or images in areas away from where the links will first take you, also some are links to homepages and such, the first images and articles, etc. are ever changing -view discretion is advised.

Before I go into that, I told Alex last night that it's like I've been on a plank on top of a ball struggling to keep my balance, kind of like this image.  I have been been going shakily from one end of the board to the other (one end being "Go Vegan because it's not right how animals are treated" and the other being, "Go Plant Based for my health").  I was telling him that I think I have finally come to a peaceful place and can steady myself.  Whether for health, or for animal treatment or the many other compelling reasons, I know that the less animal products the better! Now it's just time to wrap up my research and transition to a non-animal based diet.  I will be blogging about our journey from the standard American diet to a plant based one (it should be entertaining as my family loves animal products).

Some background:
I used to be a vegetarian, mainly because I wasn't a huge meat fan and I had seen enough PETA pictures to ruin the taste for the meat dishes I did like.  I gave up red meat (the meat I didn't like) in the 8th grade (a bazillion years ago, to be exact) and at 15 or so I gave up ALL meat.  But I had enough dairy to keep 12 milk cows busy 24/7!  I have never liked milk in a glass, but put chocolate in it and I'd down it in a heart beat.  Yogurt, cottage cheese, cream cheese and anything cheese was what I ate!!!  I quickly became a fat and unhealthy vegetarian.  I gave up my no-meat life style my freshman year of college when I was tired of bruising all the time and figured lean meat like chicken and turkey would help me lose weight. 

Veganism?!! that was just taking things too far!  Back when I first heard about VEGANS I thought of them as freaks.  I never thought I'd even consider being one, especially when I added white meat back to my daily plate.  Yet, over the years I have given it a lot of thought.  For a while I decided to sorta eat like a vegan (in the whole no dairy, lots of veggies way) -I ate lean cuts of chicken, but otherwise ate vegan.  I did it to lose weight and it worked great!  I often ate brown rice with lemon pepper and oven baked chicken breasts and steamed veggies.

So why the change? Why am I going from post vegetarian to vegan?

I never stopped caring about how animals were treated, but I didn't know how to reconcile my poultry and dairy consumption with what I knew about the cruelty of the meat industry.  But I felt like I had to have a reason for why I could eat some animals and not others.  I actually "reasoned" that eating turkey was okay because they were stupid animals that would look up to the sky during rain and drown themselves.  I concluded that if beheaded chickens could run around, they were okay to eat, too.  I guess I needed to have a reason why eating beef was "wrong" but poultry was "okay."  Truth is, I believed that beef was the unhealthy meat and poultry was healthy.

Most importantly, I preferred the taste of poultry and could not stomach the idea of eating a steak. -not much more can be honestly said about my "no red meat" stance.  I also worked hard to avoid the fact that I was eating the remains of a once living creature when I ate turkey burgers and chicken hot dogs.  To prepare a turkey or de-bone a chicken for meals, I literally had to mentally gear-up to not gag.   When I was about five years old, I was eating one of my favorite foods, fried chicken, when I found a vein.  I remember thinking it was a worm and asking my mother what it was.  She quickly explained it was a vein and flipped my hand over to be palm up.  She pointed out my veins at my wrist and explained the purpose of a vein.  I gagged, threw up and refused to eat chicken ever again.  I didn't eat chicken, willingly, for years and years later.

Though I am clearly guilty myself, I don't understand why we feel it is acceptable to eat one animal and not another.  Why is it "acceptable" to treat livestock one way, but not a dog or cat?  I don't get why a pig is for eating and a cat for cuddling.  Sure, there are differences in size, but all the people who have had a pot belly pig for a pet will tell you they are amazing pets.  Pigs are highly intelligent and social animals [1].  One person may see bacon when they see their rounded sides, but I see an animal and I see a lot more than ham and pork chops.  Why is it disgusting to think of eating dogs, but not chickens?  Horses are beautiful animals and I know many who have a pet horse and adore them, would do anything for them -yet in some countries like France, horse meat is a delicacy. When I pose these questions, I do so not to elicit a response, but to stir your thoughts (much like mine have been stirring for a while now).  I honestly have respect for someone who can raise an animal and slaughter it them self.  They have cared for the animal and have looked it in the eyes.  They are not in the "la-la land of disconnect" that I and so many of us are in.  I know for a fact that I just could not eat an animal that I raised (except to save my life, I should not say "never").

For the record: I do not believe animals are equal to people, not at all.  I do not believe that animal rights are more important than human rights.  I will choose the life of a person over an animal and I will choose human rights over animal rights any day.  But, I know, now, that they are not that far apart from each other.  Many human rights are violated because of the meat industry.  And I have more recently become aware of how much the meat industry is destroying our planet.  I also know that kindness shown to animals fosters compassion and care for people, more on this later.

I am a Christian and believe that God has given us permission to eat animals and to use them as needed for labor and companionship.  I do not believe we have to eat them or that our bodies are meant to eat them, but that we are allowed to eat them.   That said, I do not want any friend of mine or anyone reading this, to think I am passing judgement on them if they choose to eat steak every day! I am, however, writing this to share why I am choosing a different path.  And to shed light on why maybe you should, too. 

Going back to animal treatment, I want to highlight that animals raised for meat by industrial "farmers" do nothing for the animals they raise beyond what is required by law (and the law has low standards, is violated regularly and is corrupted by lobbyist and a lack of "checks and balances").  Conversely, they do plenty harm to the animals to increase profits. 

For every chicken breast you buy, 
every slab of bacon you fry 
and every bite of a burger and fry 
(I like to rhyme, I cannot deny ;-) 
you are: 

• having a commodity that taxes and depletes our planet of precious resources; 
• endangers lives; 
• employs illegal immigrants who work like slaves[2];  
• and directly puts your life at risk.   

No, I'm not being overly dramatic or exaggerating the facts.  I wish I was!  I wish I had a weak argument for going vegan.  The more I learn, the more I wish I just didn't know. Yet I am glad that I do know.  I prefer to be educated and to be equipped to make positive changes for my family and yours and for our world, in general.

So, as a Christian, why do I care beyond how people are treated? 
If God says we can eat animals, why should I try to prevent their consumption?  Or even limit it?  To briefly answer: God has told us to be good stewards with what we have been given.  I can see nothing God-honoring in the way the meat industry of today operates.  From animal abuse to hormone and antibiotic use, to indentured servitude (ask any small farmer that decided to sign on with Tyson or Perdue to raise chickens) to things like mad-cow disease and E. coli, the writing is on the wall!  This is not at all how God intended things.  Sure, nothing outside the Garden of Eden is how God intended, but this is no excuse for us to turn a blind eye to these facts so we can enjoy a cheese burger off the grill this summer.

I am not sure what you think of when you read the following names: Farmer John; Harris Ranch; Foster Farms -but I know they conjure up images of green pastures, a red barn, white puffy clouds with big blue sky.  I see animals and a farmer in a straw hat, maybe chewing a blade of tall grass; a place I'd want to grow up, or at least visit.  Take a look at this image.  Look at this picture too.

Note: I am working on transitioning to a vegan/plant based diet.  I am not yet a vegan.  I had cheese and turkey on a croissant sandwich at a potluck three days ago.  But after I learned the truth of the egg industry, how chicks are treated and what "cage free" truly meant, I stopped at least wasting money on the cartons that said, "cage free."  I really like eggs.  Quiche anyone? Egg salad sandwiches? Omelets? FRENCH TOAST!!!!!  mmmmmmmmm.... I really like eggs.  But seeing what they do to the male chicks, and even the female chicks (did you know they have their beaks trimmed or seared off so they can be kept for their life in confinement the size of an 8.5"x 11" sheet of paper?).   Here's a good site to shed more light on why eggs won't be on my table anymore. 

If you are anything like me you may be asking "but what about humanely raised animals and humane slaughter?"  I've looked into it and for the most part, humane is not really an option, and I am not just talking about financially.  Certainly, there are much better sources for animal derived goods, but beyond the rare small family farm, you will not find humanely raised animals.  And of these rare farms, many would not qualify for the description of "humane slaughter."  Beyond the fact that it's pretty much an oxymoron, the problem with humane killing methods is the that the objective of the animal's death is not to stop its beating heart, but to make money off the animal's body.  Sometimes even places that pride themselves on humane treatment of animals from birth to death have problems putting animals down in ways that can be called humane (e.g. sometimes a cow's skull is too thick to be rendered unconscious by stunt guns and after painful blows to the head they have to be shot, sometimes a few times).  I found this article on Modern Farmer to be a great look at humane slaughter, and information in general about higher standards for animal care and slaughter -it is written by Mac McClelland, a meat eater who cares about animal welfare. 

I already touched on eggs and how it's nearly impossible to find humane egg sources, but what about dairy?  When I was a vegetarian, I used to think that I was free from cruelty causing foods.  Cows make milk, we drink it, make yummy cheese with it, churn the cream and make butter with it, it's natural and simple, right?  Cows naturally lactate and I've always heard that they hurt if you don't milk them, so milking cows is kind, right?  Now, I know that is not true.  What does the life of an average dairy cow look like?  This excerpt paints the sad picture: A cow’s natural lifespan is about 25 years, but cows used by the dairy industry are killed after only four or five years. An industry study reports that by the time they are killed, nearly 40 percent of dairy cows are lame because of the intensive confinement, the filth, and the strain of being almost constantly pregnant and giving milk. Dairy cows’ bodies are turned into soup, companion animal food, or low-grade hamburger meat because their bodies are too “spent” to be used for anything else.  To learn more.  

Depressing, huh?  I find it to be quite depressing on many levels.  Mostly because I think it's really sad that such cruelty exists and that so few even care to make a difference.  Though I find other cruelty issues much much more heartbreaking and disturbing (human trafficking, for instance) I do not believe that it means I (or anyone) should turn a blind eye to these issues.  I would never want to live in a world that valued animals more than people, but I believe that if we cared about animals and valued all life, we would be a society that fostered compassion for the least of the least of these.

I could go on all day and night with what I have come to learn about how the average piece of meat gets to our tables.  And the issues surrounding, animal cruelty, are many and greatly heartbreaking.  I know that it is not easy to think about how many animals had a horrible existence and traumatic death just to be in your stomach.  But I urge anyone reading this to think about it.  Not just to make their stomach turn and leave them feeling bad.  I urge people to think about it so they can begin today to make changes.  I honestly doubt I will get anyone to become an over night vegan with my post here, but please remember that animal cruelty (and all its implications) are not the only reason to consider eliminating animal products from your diet.  For many of you, the upcoming posts will be much more compelling.  The following foot note will be a good lead in to the next post about human rights violations in the meat industry.

[1] A former kill floor manager gave the following account: “The worst thing, worse than the physical danger, is the emotional toll. . . . Pigs down on the kill floor have come up and nuzzled me like a puppy. Two minutes later I had to kill them-beat them to death with a pipe. I can’t care." Read more: http://www.foodispower.org/slaughterhouse-workers/


Helpful sites to learn more and make a difference (even if you don't want to go vegan):
http://www.psr.org/chapters/oregon/safe-food/industrial-meat-system.html

If you are a vegetarian and think you are doing enough for the welfare of animals: http://measureofdoubt.com/2011/06/22/why-a-vegetarian-might-kill-more-animals-than-an-omnivore/

Hyperemesis Gravidarum HG

So far I have briefly mentioned the fact that I have terrible pregnancies.  I get a pregnancy disease called, Hyperemesis Gravidarum or HG for short.  Little is know about HG, but about 2% of pregnant women have the misfortune of getting it.  There is a wide range of severity, but even at it's "least" it is awful.  Some very unfortunate souls get it so bad, it is a miracle they live.  Many have died.  Some call it "extreme morning sickness" -that gross understatement makes me sick.  HG is not morning sickness.  First off, you aren't just sick at one time a day!  But calling it bad or extreme morning sickness is like calling an amputated arm "an extreme paper cut." 

My last pregnancy was my worst case of HG and I will summarize the nightmare it was in these brief bullets (not all of these issues lasted throughout the entire pregnancy, but I was ill throughout the entire pregnancy):

• Was ill to the point of almost throwing up before I even took a pregnancy test
• Was throwing up at only a week and a few days post conception
• Able to detect offensive smells miles away
• Vomiting episodes that last for more than an hour
• Nausea that never ever let up
• Waking from dead sleep to vomit
• Not being able to keep any food or liquids down
• Throwing up foamy yellow stuff (bile) and beginning to black out from the lack of oxygen (hard to breathe when you are vomiting non stop out your mouth and nose)
• Getting so many IVs you lose track
• Getting so many IVs your veins begin to collapse
• Getting on a PICC line
• Getting TPN *because at 28 weeks along I was 20 lbs under my starting weight and losing about 2 lbs a week. 
• Weak beyond words
• Unable to watch TV or listen to music because it triggered vomiting episodes
• Changes in temperature increased nausea and vomiting

HG was awful to endure and I would only wish it on all the non compassionate doctors I saw throughout the pregnancy.  I even had one accuse me of just wanting to harm my baby and suggested mental health services.  I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD about 6 months after Rockwell was born.  I had it with my first pregnancy and maybe with my second, but neither time was even an 1/8th the horror the last pregnancy was. 

So throughout this blog I will mention HG and PTSD.  I hope that I don't mention either that much (not pleasant topics!) but I will, they are two parts of my life story and this blog is about my life, our family's life and I don't believe in avoiding reality (it only makes matters worse).

Here are a few photos from my pregnancy highlighting HG.  I felt awful, even if I was smiling in a photo.  I was on a never ending rocky boat ride and I only made it through because I was determined to not let the HG win.  

This is an image of my PICC line.  I don't think I got any that showed the insertion point, but this is part of the whole system.  I had a double lumen one (two lines -you can see there was blood in one of them).

I took a picture of one of the many hospital summaries that came in.  It's mind boggling to me why doctors don't do more to help women with HG, so they don't have to be in the hospital.  One would think the insurance companies would encourage better "up front" care to avoid such bills. 

A pregnancy shot with my girls.  The white band on my arms is where I hid my PICC line cords when they were not hooked up to an IV bag or later on, TPN.

one of the ugly post IV bruises

some of the supplies for a PICC line.

An image of a post-blown vein bruising

This is a terrible-quality image, but it shows the ugly PICC line and if you look at the blue ring in the center is the insertion point.

TPN - a complete form of nutrition and may include a combination of sugar and carbohydrates (for energy), proteins (for muscle strength), lipids (fat), electrolytes and trace elements.  I infused a bag like this every day over 20 hours (I injected extra vitamins and such and mixed it up before beginning the infusion).

See me? I'm the one in the pink top.  This was me at my baby shower.  I had to wear my ugly back pack that held the batter and pump to infuse the TPN (see above image).  Since it had to run 20 hours a day, I had to go everywhere with it.  See my white cord? That's the TPN coming from the bag and going to my PICC.

Opening gifts (my girls watching) I'm sharing this image to show the TPN in the line feeding to the PICC.  As you can imagine, lots of people questioned me on "what is that thing?" but most just stared with a gross-out look.