Chilli

I just made the best chilli I have ever had. Oh, and my crepe recipe is to die for too! For the crepes I used 2 cups flour, 2 egg equivalent replacement (I use Ener-G), 1 c hemp milk, 1 tsp of vanilla, 1 tbsp of honey, and enough water to make it really thin but not to the point that its dripping just a thin stream of water, normally 1/2 c to 1 c of water.

For the chilli first I learned how to make bread like a baker and its an amazing feeling pulling one of these out of the oven. This site makes sense and makes amazing bread - http://www.reluctantgourmet.com/bread_making.htm Seriously its like bread making for inexperienced people who know nothing like me.

After making the bread bowls using the above link I used two bottles of Bionaturae Strained Tomato's (no bpa yay), 1 yellow onion, half bag of ham bean soup mix soaked over night, 1 tomato, half a yam, 1 green pepper, 1 red pepper, 2 chilli peppers, 1/2 jalapeno pepper, and then put it on simmer for 2 hrs. It was amazing. I used no artificial. The only bottle was the tomatoes and the rest was just straight out of the produce isle. No organic ingredients from the produce isle exept for the green pepper, just good all grown in America veggies, and a couple Mexican peppers. :)

My tummy is happy and Elly loved making the bread with me :)

Finals

Finals the final frontier. At least for me this is my last semester at a brick and stick college. I should have never started back to school for business and I know that now. I will be glad to be done and on to my studies in holistic health and healing. Its a celebration for me as well as a drag, a celebration of new beginnings and honing in more on my life path/calling. I think to often we get caught up in the drive of life that we forget we have a purpose if we seek it and greater things we could be doing in our limited time on this planet.
So its the best of times and the worst of times. A time of ending and a time of beginning. Now if only I could order take out. Seriously its finals and being a vegan in this town means if I want food I have to cook it myself, and from scratch. mmmm. vegan pizza, or burger, or soup and salad. I might just have to drive an hour and go to Panera :)

I love being a Vegan!

Yes seriously I am loving being Vegan! I grew up in a family that only knew how to cook meat centered meals and got the lecture that if you didn't drink milk you would end up frail and weak like Great Grandma Soph (who was nearing 90 and death). Naturally I did what any good kid would do and ate what was prepared. Problem was it didn't set with me. I had driven past the slaughter houses smelled the stench and heard the death cry of the animals. It was the thing of nightmares the look in their eyes. Why you might ask did it take me another 10 years to become Vegan? Well simply because I didn't know any better. The media and web is so biased to the standard American diet and I had been repeatedly told that I was going to die if I didn't get enough animal protien. I finally got some down time to read the China Study about a month ago and watch Forks Over Knifes. Do yourself a favor a go watch them now. I am in love with the answers I found about why we are such a obese nation and why our cancer/hear disease/mother mortality during birth/diabetes rates are higher then most other industrialised nation. The answer? You guessed it! You are What You Eat! Now if you are a girl go read The Skinny Bitch - wait go get some vegan brownies from the store and then read the Skinny Bitch, your stomach will thank you and so will every body system after about of month of better eating. Better eating full of wonderful alive foods that are thriving and full of colour and not dead rotting carcase from another species of life form.

Health Benefits I have experience:

Depression almost disappearing completely (no other life circumstance changes)

Lower Back Pain Gone

Hormone imbalance balancing out (no more full of hormone meat for me or bad menstruation)

Clearer Mind

Better ability to deal with douches and other stressful situations without getting as stressed out

Angina attacks not happening when I do get stressed out

Ability to trash the Eliptical at 1.2 miles in 15 mins without getting tired and still having a ton of energy in the end

More Energy

Energy boosts after meals - which means I eat more (I had a habit of getting to skinny because I didn't like to eat because I didn't like how tired I felt after eating and who needs to be tired with a two year old)

Happier daughter (which leads to happier Mama)

IBS gone

Secondary Dis-menoreah gone

Did I mention low back pain gone!!!!!!

Better tasting food (I love vegan recipes)

Better life over-all

If you would have told my depressed skinny butt that I would end up having all of my health problems dissapear in a month I would have laughed at you. I have been to doctors of the traditional and non - traditional and gone to nutrition counselling. I have been to physically therapists, psychologists, cardiologists, and pretty much every other ologist out there - md's do's, dc's Nothing worked. But This Works! I feel so alive and wonderful! I love that I am what I eat and I eat wonderful living foods that are yummy and I feel wonderful and alive!

Seriously might I just say don't read any post before this one. Really don't. They are for my personal reference only. K. Maybe if I could figure out how to take them off this would be a mute point, as it is just trust my bloggy illiterate self with this one.

I think I may actually start this up again. Now that I found out that the real reason behind all my problems, was that I was eating myself to death. No biggie. Now that I am a vegan its all better. Lets see since my last post I have had three people living with us at different times who all turned out to be losers, but I did my Christian duty and took in the less fortunate so brownies in heaven for me, miscarried twice (yes I was stupid/in love with babies enough to try anyways), bought a house, found out that Elly is a mutant with super speed, and fixed all of our health problems. I have switched future career plans three times due to all the above and realised that I am really just happy being a Mom. As long as its a vegan Mom. I am so blessed that I found the diet that I did. So this is the last post update of life, just thought I should bridge things here. On to bigger and better things. Better health, bigger plans, and a undying possibly unhealthy obsession with the Failure Club on Yahoo.

Welcome to my lunch break. Nice that I get one today. Ellowyn slept 10hrs striaght last night and then went down for a nap at noon, she is still fast alseep. Its so nice that I get a break.
Nothing much new lately. Just getting everything done I need to for school: fasfa in, transcripts ordered classes looked at. The main thing occupying my spare time now is trying to find a caretaker for Ellowyn. I don't need a full time daycare and that makes it hard to find space for her somewhere in this small little tiny town. I've been trying to hold on until the summer but I am getting migrains every other day because of the back strain of taking care of a bigger child (she has just gotten too big) and thats not healthy for either of us. Poor thing is so frusterated and insecure. I hope I can find someone who wants extra work who would be willing to just come over for a couple hours a day and help out with her so I can rest. Its funny how even in this economy its hard finding someone who wants to work for me because its part time, well finding the right kind of person at least. sighs. One of these days it will all work out, even if thats the day she is ready for pre-school. Other then that life has been really good for us here.

Sighs. Its been a busy month, very busy. At the same time its been full in many new ways. We where able to settle into a rental after moving twice in one week. It is a big beautiful house that has given us enough space to create a proper home. Getting a proper home and a solid schedule has been huge for Ellowyn. She started sleeping through the night earlier this week and has since hit the biggest growth spurt we have seen, and eats more then ever as well.

We just found out last week that I cannot carry anymore children safely. Its hard especially being in a area with so many large families (religious community with large Amish and Mexican families). I cannot go out without seeing multiple pregnant woman. Ellowyn would do well with a sibling, but I can't give it too her. I can barely care for her and some days I can't care for her properly due to my back injury. It progressed severely over the years and especially due to my pregnancy with her. We found out that there are no reliable treatment options and that carrying another child would mean more bedrest and possibly cutting of nerves to my legs.... Aaron is set on hiring a surrogate if we find the right one, and if I don't get too bad in the mean time we could have another child when Ellowyn is in Kindergarten and largely able to take care of herself. I have enrolled in school and will finish my associates and possibly my bachlors in the mean time while we wait and see. I will probably take a break for the first year of the next one's (if there is a next one) life and then go back for my Masters. I have nothing else to do right now. I can't be a proper house wife, as I can't keep up with the house so that pretty much means I have to go to school and then work as I can't just do nothing. The tricky thing is figuring out a field that I can do from a wheelchair as there is a good chance I could end up in one in the next 20years. I hope that treatement options improve before that happens, but I know better then to count on a unknown. So far I am thinking design. I can no longer go into mortuary sciences as I had wanted to as that isn't something I can work from a wheelchair, and can't work well at all (too much bending, lifting, twisting, ect) in my present condition.

I don't like it when life changes on me like that, but there never where any guarentee's. I had totally trusted the doctors saying that becasuse I was young my disks wouldn't degenerate for now, and if they did not much. I never thought I would go for a visit to a Chiropractor and be faced with the stark image on a x-ray of my spine, a image radically different from the last, and a image that told me all I needed to know. The chiropractor thought he could help me with the techniques they use, but I have been unable to find any "real" success stories and since they aren't licensed to use the machine that they use, and since it is a new very new and unproven treatment I can have no confidence in it and cannot risk the possible damage it could do. The thought of being strapped into a table to flex my back, and knowing that flexing and strain currently hurt my back, common sense tells me that it doesn't make any sense. So, I am left without any real treatments. There is surgery but no one that I know who has had it (and I know allot of people who have) had success, in fact the only reviews you find are negative. So, no babies and possible paralysis lowerlevel style. I know that degenerative disks don't normally cause paralysis but its the hernia and the way it is pinching nerves due to blunt trama on a disk that is degenerate that worries me. I am already feeling some numbness and showing signs of nerve inhibition so if anything happens to cause more herniation or if the disk degenerates funky....the whole thing is just messed up. At least I already know wheelchairdom pretty well. Its not so bad except for not being able to go on walks through the woods or feel the dirt in your toes....maybe if it happens then by then I will be able to convince Aaron to carry me.

I have decided to take back up designing and making dresses for a hobby to keep me busy in the summer while little one is busy playing outside. I feel like it would be good to get that energy out, who knows maybe it could turn into something. I haven't had the opportunity to really delve into it much before because of lack of funds for material, but I have always been creating with fabric on what scale I could. I found wholesale fabric and it will be fun to see what I can come up with. I am thinking about doing modest prom dresses. It would be fun :)