Food For The Soul

Eating without refined sugar or grains is very good. I feel good, really good. I have basically no headaches or stomachaches not related to sickness, I am effortlessly trim, my moods stay super stable and I have more endurance physically (though its hard to tell if that's because of weight loss or good diet).  I'm not sure exactly where I stand on the celiac/gluten intolerance spectrum but I firmly believe my body doesn't like wheat. I have to say though, I notice similarly dramatic reactions to sugar consumption in my body. A handful of chocolate chips consumed on a bad day can put me off kilter with headaches and irrational mood-swings for another 48 hours. The individual psychology of eating sugar-less and grain-free is pretty easy too. I tell people all the time that I still can eat a LOT of stuff. All meats, all dairy, all vegetables (save the potato) and all fruits. That doesn't sound so spare, right?

I truly thought a lot of this stuff was hokum insanity whipped up by kill-joy hippies, obsessed with controlling their whole existence and I am ashamed to admit that I have made fun of people talking like I do now or even just quietly eating in a careful way on the sidelines. I have been flabbergasted by how extremely hard it is for me to choose a different path with food and still be part of mainstream culture. People have been angry with me over my food choices, argumentative about the things I have read, pushy about what they'd like me to put in my mouth and verbally ridiculing about the things I am choosing to politely decline. I felt blindsided by people being threatening and mean about silly things like cake and hot dog buns. I think I might have been better able to handle the negativity if I had had any idea it was coming. I assumed in this age of rampant food allergy and vegetarian, local, vegan eating that people wouldn't bat an eye and I'd have to have very few actual conversations about my new eating. I was super wrong. Note: To Those Considering Eliminating Refined Sugar and Grains....people are not ready for this...prepare for a lot of judgement and skeptical questioning.

Its good to learn compassion by needing it yourself, to learn acceptance by seeing how important it really can be for you and to learn to love humility and secure space for a no answer after being pushed and prodded by those who are uber sure they're right. Did I mention that the theme of my year this year is acceptance? Even food has lessons to offer. All things are windows into the soul, even the way we cook, eat and serve our meals.

School Year Leap

I am typing furiously tonight. All is in flux. Its time for a new season! I have decided to scrap all the ideas I had for how everything normally goes and start over from ground zero in every way. Home schooling starts in earnest this year...we have a genuine first grader in the house. In order to maintain some level of sanity, make sure the laundry gets done and assure ourselves that said first grader learns to read his Dick and Jane we need new rules.

Henceforth, starting not this week but the next....if you try to call me in the morning you will go straight to voicemail. If you knock on the door and are not bleeding from an orifice I won't answer and if you are waiting for an email from me, rest assured it won't arrive before noon. I am blocking off all morning hours for housework, reading together and school lessons, such as they are. All our social engagements, museum ventures, errands and other jaunts will be shifted to afternoons. Life will become ironclad and organized.

 

Tell me its smart.

And clever.

And so soothingly arranged.

Will you? 

 

I'm pretty sure its the right thing to do and yet...its a big leap.

This involves letting go of my current art fellowship group and every single other thing we've been involved in.....besides our homeschool co-op. And no...we're not going to become one of THOSE families...I think social involvement for Mommy and kids is extremely key. It just means we're starting completely over. Everything I had in place is gone so we're on the hunt for all new, afternoon events. I'm feeling alternately optimistic and lost.

Sarsparilla and Jenny Come To Stay

Pardon the very dirty socks, ya'll.

Snuggling into the soft, warmth of a living animal is a pretty irreplaceable feeling. We tried fish, we tried caterpillars, we tried observing wild animals on occasion and we tried subsisting on visits with pets that friends own. All those things are wonderful and helpful but not quite the same as developing a relationship with a living animal yourself, saying goodnight and good morning to each other, cuddling together on a bad day and learning to observe and understand cross-species communication.

 Our new house residents are a pair of baby sister guinea pigs that the boys named Sarsparilla and Jenny. We found them for free on Craig's List, (source of all good things) and drove home from a small town, a-way up Hwy 15 excitedly making stops in commuter lots and on curbs to peek at them one more time and stop to pick them green twigs and other leafy treats. Ru in particular is pretty beside himself about their arrival but all the boys are very pleased about having our own animal friends and have been very faithful about helping me take care of them. Even Nib is very territorial about his little personal job of filling their food dish with new dried seeds and nuts under my supervision.

They are gentle and silky soft, no finger biting or panicked clawing like rabbits. They are nervous about humans but they have become less skittish over time and are much calmer when people act calmly around them. They now recognize feeding and petting and our other interactions and they will happily sit in arms or laps for fairly indefinite periods of time. They are clever, bright-eyed, social foragers who are most active during the day which makes just watching them lots of fun. They are non-invasive, not smelly, neat and not loud although they do make gentle little squeaking, chirping noises to communicate. They eat raw vegetable and fruit scraps (squishy grapes, carrot tops and apple cores are well-loved), hay in quantity and packaged store grain based food but they get very excited about gifts of grass bouquets trimmed with dandelions eating the flowers and leaves the boys bring them with equal relish. They love to play with green sticks and gnaw rows of little hash marks down  them like miniature beavers keeping their teeth trimmed just so.

Such fun to have a little bright spot like this in our home routine. I have spent some exhausted evenings when the house was finally quiet and I felt spent with one pocket pet snuggled up on my chest, nuzzling that soft fur and looking into those glinting bright eyes just feeling better again. Companionship is so warming, even of the rodent variety. I think A is still not sure he allowed a good thing (I swear to you I got his permission first!) and he has yet to physically touch either one of them and calls them a bit reservedly, with a sniff  "the pigs" but hopefully he'll warm with time. Until then, the boys and I will get in all the snuggles we can....genuine pet-owners at last! I like to think Beatrix Potter would be proud and I think she'd especially approve of their forays into the garden on sunny days We have found that they can be carried outdoors in arms, followed by the boxy, wire section of their home and then put to graze directly onto some warm spot on the lawn, not too far from a good patch of clover. A little garden work seems to make them very happy indeed, life is not so very rough for our girls.

"Guinea Pigs" a watercolor by Beatrix Potter from her collection Cecily Parsley's Nursery Rhymes