Enchanted Chameleon

Crazy. Crazy for Feeling Soooo Blue

I'm still a little up and down but overall the past 24 hours since you last heard from me have been good. We started with a little something I picked up from Banyen yesterday - a little colour therapy for the bath. Nothing sucks in a toddler currently on a bath strike like bright blue bath water.

  

Then we started our day today with those raw 'cupcakes' that I promised...

Yes those are oranges!!

Then I voted.  I do have to admit that I get a bit of a buzz from voting and I proudly wore my sticker.

And then we hit the beach with some friends we were overdue to see.  It was a great visit and a great day for the beach (no photos - Jeff was working diligently on his gardening homework which requires the camera).

We are off for sushi soon, just waiting to close the deal on another craigslist item.  Have I mentioned my obsession with craigslist this past week?  I'm on a craigslist kick.  Out with the old, room for the new.  I think I might also be on a raw food dessert kick.  Wait till you see what I have planned for tomorrow!  Suzanne

Beyond Goals

I was talking lots about goals recently, I posted my 'tutorial' on setting easy goals which really works (if you know what you want) and I got to thinking about one of the goals that I set - I want to be 100% raw.  

What got me wondering about it is having finished the newest edition of 12 Steps to Raw Foods by Victoria Boutenko.  She actually states in the book that going or being 100% raw is not a goal.  Not in the long run.  Real goals, in her opinion,  have to do with spirituality not having stuff or being things. Perhaps that is why setting out to be 100% raw hasn't ever worked for me.

 

Recently at the weekend retreat that I spent with Victoria, she spoke to us about a Breatharian that she had once met.  This man ate only a teaspoon of food per day and lived on air the rest of the time. What was most interesting about this and stood out to me even before I read her book was that the gentleman had not set out a goal to be a Breatharian, he simply just ended up being one because of where his life had taken him.  

 

This makes me not only wonder about my goals for being a raw foodist but about all my goals in general.  I completely admire and yet am completely fearful at the same time of the faith required to give up planning and to simply be.  I'm also quite fearful of the place that I am at this moment, questioning everything, knowing nothing.    

 

On a positive note, I am, no doubt, already something great in my own rite - goals or no goals.  Funny, I think my goal setting tutorial provided me with an insight that I wasn't expecting.  I thought I was just spreading the wealth of a great way to make goals.  Now, I suddenly don't have any!  

 

I do highly recommend Victoria's updated version of 12 Steps to Raw Foods.  As Gabriel Cousens says in his quote on the back cover of the book, "The first edition of this book was excellent.  The second edition is masterfully outstanding."  Suzanne

What to do with Barbie Shoes

Carrot Cake Before and After

Morning stroll in my hood.

Ze market

The cutest corner store ever

Burning the Midnight Oil

It's getting closer to 1 am and I'm running out of fossil fuels.  Just wanted to let out one last yelp for the Blim Community Market tomorrow.  I was a little panicked earlier when I left unfinished desserts and my kid so I could attend the Crazy 8s film festival with my husband (he gaffed a short called "Teaser").  It took me until intermission to relax and thankfully I eventually got around to enjoying myself.  This market was a challenge for me, Jeff was working nights this week so there was no blending in the mornings and I initially thought I stretched a little too far with making up desserts on the spot but now the desserts look amazing (even I'm a little impressed) and I'm more organized and prepped than the last two markets (and tomorrow I'll be able to learn some more).  I know I've said it a hundred times lately that I need to cut back on stuff, and I keep saying "as soon as I finish such and such" a lot, but this time I really mean it.  Tomorrow is it for markets until I complete my business plan for the juice bar and after tomorrow is over I'm going to really throw myself into my performing class for the last 2 weeks that it is running.  And then I'll such and such.  He he.  

 

But one last thing before I go.  Check out this.  My first appearance on someone else's blog (and I've gotswimmers hair).  Yay!.  Here's the dets on the market tomorrow.  I hope to see all of your sweet wonderful faces.  Suzanne   

 

Raw Review

 I can't possibly review everything that I've ever learned about raw so I'm trying to scan my brain for the top 3 things about raw that stand out the most to me at this point.  Here it goes:

 

1. Raw tends to make me feel alone in the world.  The truth is, it isn't raw that makes me feel alone.  Raw got me in touch with the bigger picture of that alone feeling and since I stopped 100% raw to be more connected to family and friends, I have been forced to dig deeper into those feelings and embrace them.  There are literally millions of raw foodists in the world, I can hardly consider myself alone on this journey.  I believe that this applies to all those changes that we make in our lives that stretch us outside our comfort zone and those changes are good no matter how bad it may make us feel.
2. Cooked foods are addictive.  If they weren't, we wouldn't detox and crave it more, the way people do when they come off drugs, nicotine or alcohol.  People don't experience this when they don't eat fruits for a week the way they do if they eliminate coffee, breads, sugar or meats.  
3. I feel more like more of a raw foodist now than when I was pushing myself to be 100% raw before.  Small, achievable changes are far more efficient and in the long run, far more sustainable.  In my opinion, I'm a far more successful 50% raw fooder than I was at 100%.

  My top 3 successes:

 

1. Green smoothies.  We drink them daily and we've been drinking them consistently enough to  actually see the benefits while still eating cooked foods.  
2. Freeing myself from wheat.  It was easy as pie.  Raw pie.   
3. Fruitcakes.  Accepting that I don't have to be 100% raw to share and work in raw foods was a huge obstacle that I had to overcome, but when I let go of that roadblock, a lot of positive things started to flow into my life. 

What still needs work:

 

1. Letting go of negative body images.  They've come a long way but they are still small triggers for me. 
   
2. Generating my own raw food journey.  I have a tendency to fall back on and get locked into how other people became raw.  I sometimes feel obligated to do it exactly their way and that is a dead end.  The things I do next, have to come from inside, not another persons book. 
3. Trust, faith, maintaining my innocence, priorities and organization.  Always a work in progress. 

Cheers!  Suzanne

Alissa Cohen on My Fox Boston

Check out Alissa on My Fox Boston (one of my favourite first 'cook' books for a beginner raw foodie)

or you can find more info on Alissa at her website. 

D'oh! Happy Earth Day

I wrote a blog yesterday.  A great blog.  And when I went to my site today there was absolutely no sign of it!  Weird.  I guess I have more to say on the subject!

 

I started off with Happy Earth Day!

Photo by Jacqueline Ohm

I finished my juice fast yesterday afternoon and I have some observations to share:

• It's way easier to juice for 24 hours when half of that is spent sleeping.  I highly recommend starting in the afternoons
• Fasting is a great testament to presence and mindfulness and even mindful eating.  As a mom that tends to pop everything Cillian doesn't eat in my mouth, I had to keep pushing my start time for the fast as I kept finding food in my mouth! 
• Cooked food smells damn good when I fast.  Especially the chicken tenders that were in someone else's mouth at my acting class the night before.  I mindfully left them in the other persons mouth. 
• When I broke the fast I had some grapes at first and then I moved on to my daily apple.  We only had some non organic apples sitting in the house and man, they were yuck!  I couldn't even finish it.  Either it heightened my taste and the widened the gap between organic and non or it's been that long since I've had a non organic apple and it was yuck!  Or both. 
• And my final observation that I didn't make in my original blog and can now is that I have had some awesome BMs since I finished.  You know you are a raw foodist when you openly talk about your BMs. 

Prepped to tape an audition, with my morning juice.

I had a really great day yesterday.  It was completely out of my routine and it stirred my day up a lot and things were quite the whirlwind but it was definitely a stretch in a new direction.  An audition tape, a meet up with a raw curious friend and a visit from a old friend from TO - it was quite the day.

As for Earth Day, my contribution was in the form of little raw earth balls.  I made them for a class fundraiser to buy a school pet.  Hopefully it went well.

And since it's a new day, I get to add a little extra.  A bike ride, trip to the beach, snacks at the yoga studio (family yoga has been cancelled but we are still welcome to visit), juice, stamps and paint, supplies to do freezer paper stencils on some shirts (excited!) and green smoothie time with Nicholas, Cillian and Lisa.  Thank you Earth!  Suzanne

  
  
  

Courage

I'm not quite sure where I'm writing to you from today.  I seem to be thinking with a different part of my brain so let's just see what comes up.  

I'll start with the obvious.  I just completed 3 weeks free of wheat, corn, rye, barley and white rice.  In that time I haven't had one breakout on my face and the horrible rash on my hand cleared up as you can see from the before and afters posted here.

My theory on why my skin has cleared up is the relief of excess toxins on my liver.  When the liver is overloaded than toxins head for the bowels and if there isn't a clear passage there then they come out the skin.  When I relieved myself of excess toxins, just these 5 grains was enough to alleviate an overload of work on my liver.  

 

So what next?  That's a great question and quite possibly where the word "Courage" comes in today.

 

Here's what's been on my mind lately:

• my weight
• my weight and the weddings I'm going to this summer 
• my weight and going to the pool 
• and as of today, my weight and my acting career (I received a not so encouraging email from my agent this afternoon!) 

Here's what I know for sure.  Losing weight for the wrong reasons means that I'll eventually give up and lose motivation and put it back on.  What exactly is the wrong reason then?  In my opinion, the last 3 on my list.

 

Courage:

• accept and love my weight 
• accept and love my weight at the weddings 
• accept and love my weight at the pool 
• and as of today, accept and love my weight and my acting career

Ah.  There's that uncomfortable place where I don't want to go.  I want to do, to be successful, to conquer.  Can I do those things and not be the ideal that everyone and myself are looking for?  One thing I have learned over the years is that the uncomfortable place means that I'm on the right track.

 

Here's some other things that are on my mind lately:

• fat free green smoothie challenge:  I can't decide if I want to do this for the sake of clearing up candida and cutting my fat cravings or if I just want to lose a butt load (and I mean a butt load) of weight
• juice fast:  this one has been on my mind for a long time.  I wanted to cut grains and then do a juice fast so the easy answer is I'll be doing a juice fast for sure.  In fact, I'm planning on doing it tomorrow for 24 hours, starting after lunch. 

That's all that comes to mind at the moment.  I guess those are the most pressing.

 

Here's my last stab at courage today.  Posting the photo that I don't believe is picture perfect and loving myself anyway.  Oh, the discomfort of the uncomfortable place.  I highly recommend going there. 

Love Suzanne

 

 

Holy Crap! (I Promise it's not about Poo)

What a day!!!

Remember the tea party that I was asked to cater for???  Well it was today, not tomorrow!!!  It was a close call and it took me a few minutes after the initial "Holy crap" to figure out a game plan, revamp a portion of the menu for the tea and be ready within a couple of hours but I did it and I'm proud to say and have continuously bragged to myself and others that I did NOT freak out.  

Yay me.  One more pat on the back won't hurt.  

So I made it and the food was great and there was great feedback and the presence of many other wonderful mompreneurs and of course, the guest of honour, Peggy O'Mara was there and we chatted about movies and my foods and me writing an article on raw foods for the magazine (she was totally interested, eek!).  

Peggy O'Mara, Editor of Mothering Magazine and ME (with swimmers hair from yesterday's adventure to Killarney Pool!)

Overall, a feel good day.

It didn't end there, I also was committed to my first volunteer shift at the Jericho Arts Centre tonight, working the concession stand.  I had the opportunity to even sit in on the first act of Tom Stoppards' "The Invention of Love" and it felt good and motivating to be in the presence of the theatre and actors and creativity and art.  I've been wanting to build a relationship with a community theatre for a while and I am continually drawn to Jericho and the United Players, I previously helped in production back when I was pregnant and before that had been cast in one of the Greeks.  Apparently there is an amazing line up of plays next season including two Canadian premieres and I caught myself fantasizing that there is a perfect part for me to play in one of them (fingers crossed!)  

Personally I can't think of anything better than raising a child in the presence of the theatre, in the environment of the farmers market with my juice bar (coming soon??!!??) and on raw foods (as raw as raw can be).  

Yay me.

To share in my joyousness I want to celebrate all the wonderful moms that are a part of my community and you'll find that My Favourite Links to the side of the blog is now My Favourite Moms.  

And last but not least, let's celebrate you!  My favourite bloggees in the whole wide world!  Thank you for reading, thank you for your interest, thank you for sharing my journey.  Have a great weekend. Suzanne  

Minty Fresh

Last night before I went to my acting class (currently Broadway singing class - I'll give you more details soon) I whipped up my own green smoothie recipe.  I had bought mint to put into a dish I made for dinner but there was just something about that mint again that had me salivating and itching to eat it. So for my smoothie I blended up 1/2 a green leaf lettuce, two sprigs of mint, 1/2 a pineapple and a cup of blueberries.  I sucked that thing back so fast, my stomach needed time to catch up after!  I decided to look up the nutritional benefits of mint, out of curiosity of what might be missing in my body at the moment.  Here's what I found:Mint contains a number of vitamins and minerals, which are vital to maintain a healthy body. Mint is rich in Vitamins A and C and also contains smaller amounts of Vitamin B2. Vitamin C is an important antioxidant and may help to decrease the risk of certain cancers such as colon and rectal cancer. Although mint may be consumed in small quantities, the vital nutrients obtained are still beneficial to one's health.   Mint also contains a wide range of essential minerals such as manganese, copper, iron, potassium and calcium. 

I'm excited to say that I still have some left and am thrilled to have a genuine raw food craving! Suzanne