Gagline and Renewal #HAWMC 26 Cranky Post!

Quick Note: I was hoping this would be live in time for yesterday's 3rd person post, as it would have been perfect, but it wasn't--so here it is now--I got to be in the newspaper too!

I've never been the tallest person in a group photo before!
http://homertribune.com/2012/04/bird-poets-prepare-for-shorebird-production/

OK! HAWMC #26--create a catchy tagline for your blog or health condition! I confessed to a little crankiness about a couple prompts last week, but really, this one got my goat! And that was before I read the very patronizing and inane suggestions for making a cutesy catchy tagline/gagline. Pull out a thesaurus. Look for homophones and gag-making puns. WEGO--I love you, but please!

We already had Keep-Calm-o-Matic. We had Pinboards. We had "things we forget" sticky notes. We had iconic mascots. We've got six-sentence (sentence? Why not "six-word"?) posts coming up soon. And now, a gagline that brands us and makes people instantly think of our "product." Um. I'm not a piece of merchandise or part of a herd of cattle. I bet branding hurts, btw. Redundancy is great for slow learners (which sometimes includes me) but it can get tiresome, too! Plus, I already have a tagline--look at the top of my blog, and I explained it already in the mascot post.

In what follows, perhaps some therapists would say we've made a breakthrough: I very seldom (or never) name my diagnosed conditions, but I'm so irritated with this prompt that I think I'm going to name them as I explain why my gagline is so appropriate. But is it a breakthrough, or is it a tacky error of judgment because I'm balls-to-the-wall and my filters are off? Please check me here. (If you're allergic to diagnostic labels, or are a family member, please cover your eyes!)

Maybe this is cathartic, but let me preface it by saying--

I am not my diagnoses! They are some of the lenses through which I view life, and they are some of the challenges with which I have been gifted on my journey, some of the sources from which I offer gifts.

So, it's glaringly obvious what a person diagnosed with anorexia nervosa and with bipolar-1 should have as a tagline for her blog:

What goes up must come down.

What goes down must come up.

Calling a graphic designer to set that slogan inside an image of a squared circle.

Speaking of things going down and coming back up, I'm celebrating our persistent sunshine and daily increases in green these last few days. Here's the raised bed in front of our cabin as it looked three weeks ago...

And now look what's in it, renewed from last year, some of the clumps grown back from the roots, some from seeds shed by the original plants...

My lovely spearmint is graciously returning too, and seems to have spread far. Doesn't look like the peppermint made it, though, which surprises me, as peppermint is usually more cold-tolerant. This was a chocolate mint variety, though, so who knows...

And note--I could take a short break outside with no hat on, no long sleeves, and the sun on my limbs!

The same view two months ago--substituting a moose for me!

What dies back to the root must rise green again in springtime. What falls as snow must run to the sea and evaporate into the air once again. 


Thanks for bearing with my crankiness--I feel better now. 

Do you agree it's a good tagline, or do you have a better one?

Green Smoothie Learning Curve; Reflections on Self Love

Happy Friday, loves!

I want to talk about the sudden jump today in my green smoothie learning curve, and about today's reflection on self love.

First - thanks so much to all who are entering my Amazing Grass giveaway - please spread the word, and I'd love to connect with more likeminded folks through this blog.

I stumbled into making green smoothies back in California, and had started doing it shortly before Victoria Boutenko began recommending them: in fact, I spoke with her in person at an event just at that outset. I was selling produce and coming home with lots of squashed peaches and bunches of chard that I found hard to eat straight. At the time, I ate mostly fruit and no fat, so blending them together seemed a good way of making the chard etc palatable. And that was the major goal of my green smoothies until now - to make it palatable, no more (and sometimes, just barely)! I start to realize that a lot of my 'safe' food has been like that. 

Well, what with avoiding fruit now (except for my daily Naturopath-ordered apple and enjoying these raspberries growing outside), the green smoothies were very sludgy and bitter, with nothing but a carrot or beet to carry the green taste.

Isn't this the funniest little carrot I pulled out of the ground today?

 I'd also been adding very little liquid, and cramming in the greens, and often would feel stuffed without being satiated afterwards. I noticed that maybe I didn't most love that super-sludgy bitterness. Until the Vita-Mix arrived, I'd barely been making them - that little hand-blender not quite up to the task. Even with the Vita, thick, bitter, green sludge didn't taste great and I actually didn't feel that great from it either! Time to see what I could learn. (Self love, anyone?)

So today at lunch, my green smoothie had me humming and yumming - what a change! It was nut milk and herbal spicy tea, a little piece of avocado, some chia gel and flax seeds, a little pea protein powder, a teaspoon of carob, peppermint leaves and stinging nettles from the garden - just a few - and some peppermint oil, three drops of dark chocolate flavor extract and a touch of stevia! Oh my goodness, this was delightful! I'd been craving chocolate and thought I should probably not use cacao, as I'm chelating again and my adrenals have plenty to do already. This hit my chocolate spot really well.

And for dinner - a super-powerful smoothie: herbal spicy tea, stinging nettles and clover and some raspberries - all freshly picked, a few walnuts, some hemp protein/fiber powder, some chia gel, chlorella, spirulina  and a whole red jalapeno! Somehow the intensity of the nettles and hot pepper go so well together, and are toned down by the light raspberry and hemp tastes. This more liquid, drinkable texture is so much more to my liking - and it's easier to clean out the pitcher afterwards too! What rocket fuel! I love the dark, dark blue-green too. (And yes, those are kombucha scobys in the background!)

OK - Today's Reflection on self love is about exercise. Tina asks: "Has exercise ever controlled your life or defined you in a negative way? What ways can/do you pursue fitness for health and a stronger sense of self?"

It's great to be invited to consider exercise as a way to take good care of ourselves; and I love that Tina notes that running errands, walking from one place to another, etc, can all be included as exercise. 

I have to say, I have an inferiority complex around exercise! Always have. My experience of my body has been that it tires easily and does not build muscle easily. When I got quite strong a couple years ago, eating raw eggs in addition to raw plant foods, I wondered if this difficulty was nutritional and tried more animal products. But the end seemed to be that those foods just made me sick and my fitness levels crashed even before I quit eating them. It seems like I've gone through this cycle a few times, of building up to being fairly strong and then majorly crashing and being barely able to do anything. Chronic Fatigue, and adrenal and digestive problems, if we want to label. 

This time around, I'm so determined not to crash and burn again: to resist my natural tendency to push myself as hard as I can. So lately, I haven't always parked as far away from the store as possible - I've only done that if I've had the energy. I haven't always taken stairs instead of an elevator if I'm in that situation (I used to refuse to get in an elevator unless I was very heavily-laden!)

Yesterday, during my walk, I hiked out on this tongue of land surrounded by high tide water - it was a very high tide; much of the time, all of the surrounding land can be hiked on too.

I stopped to sit on this log for a little, and appreciated the treasure someone else had left - a small rock that's shaped just like a clam, with some clamshells beside it to make the point! 

That said, I was pretty sore and tired this morning, and today have kept my walks to errand-running and stretching.  

Speaking of exercise - I'll leave you with word of another great giveaway from Averie - for a $50 shopping spree at America's Nutrition, with all kinds of exercise equipment as well as nutritional products and foods. Go here to enter!