Bathroom before...

Spring madness has sprung on the RawTn household! These are the before photos...


The room by room saga has begun.

I'm de-cluttering and brightening up this cave! I've chosen this bathroom to begin in because it's the smallest room, and the most public restroom in the house. Easiest to clean and I'm gonna get the most results for time invested on this extremely looooong Friday...

Goals: Immediate--> Decorative bulbs w/more wattage & a white/ lighter shade for the window/ fuzzy white carpet washed & back down for fuzziness.

Goals: Considering--> Painting white: a) walls b) cabinet c) ceiling
--> Installing a showerhead (and the breaker for the jets)
--> Curved shower rod/ neutral shower curtain


Please let me know what your ideas are! It needs to be easy to keep clean, and eco friendly if at all possible. I'm kinda looking for a spa feel. We hope to do this in the next week & then move on to the next room...

Blissed & Blessed

One of the things that I love about this raw food journey is the people that I meet on the way!

When God created the sun, and the plants and trees to give food to us, I believe He did it with more love than we can imagine! When we eat of that fresh, God given food, full of nutrients, I feel that love. Maybe part of it is that my body has become more alkaline, which doesn't hurt either, lol.

I have recieved so much love from friends that I have met on this journey. Every day I am surrounded by well wishes, smiles, hugs and support. Thank you friends, you know who you are! (Most of them are on Twitter- A group instant messenger type thingy. Ask me about it if you're interested...) We talk daily and encourage each other to be the best we can be. We share recipes and tips, as well as sites of interest and life's ups & downs.

I want to send a special shout out to some amazing folks who have gone above & beyond the line of duty into the realm of love!

Penni @ http://realfoodtulsa.blogspot.com/ Penny was one of the first friends that I made in the raw community. We were talking about various different things, and she mentioned that her house smelled SO good because she had a load of granola in the dehydrator. I drooled, lol, and she mailed me a big pack of it! I was in a state of bliss! :D I hope that we can get together soon as we're ONLY 8 hours from one another!


Bethany @ http://littlegirlbigvoice.blogspot.com/ trying to stop drinking coffee. She suggested Mate tea, so I went everywhere looking for it & Bethany and I were co-miserating about could not find it anywhere locally. So she sent me a big bag (I'm STILL drinking that one! ) Then she sent me a great almond milk recipe to add to the mate to make it a mate latte! Yeah baby! Now we're talking! I rarely drink coffee now, and I owe it to Bethany~lilgirlbigvoice... Hopefully we will meet in person next month when I will be taking William to Camp Hanes. Fun times!


Kellie @ http://sunkitchen.blogspot.com/ I just 'met' Kellie not too very long ago. We cut up and chatter around on twitter, and generally have a great time, but when I asked everybody on there which 'raw' book I should buy first, she told me to wait. Today I got a very nice package in the mail! I am almost speechless! (That would make things difficult, considering I'm posting this blog, lol) She sent me a raw book, 2 DVD's and 3 Larabars! Score! To top it off, she took the time out of moving to send it!

*Special mention & thanks goes out to Helene Laurence http://www.harmonicliving.com/hlo/index.asp) for this message I recieved from her today: "Sent you my favorite uncook book via amazon, you should have it by end of next week! please enjoy it as much as I have!" See what I mean!

Thank you guys so much! You are rawsome! You rawk! :D hehe

The funny thing is that my phone going *ding* has annoyed my family at times and they have said that those friends aren't real. I just always say... "Oh! Somebody loves me!"

And the beet is on....

I'm just back in from the RawTn garden. Whew, 91 degrees today! For any of you who care, here's the garden good news: (and if you don't care, the bad news is further down the post, lol)

Most noticeable of all: the beets look amazing! Wow, just beautiful. They are the most appealing and abundant thing in the garden! Can't wait to throw those babies in my smoothies! (I hear you get colorful pee, lol)

Ok, tmi, next vegie: the romaine looks great. Lots of 6" tall heads coming up. Mmmm, they are gonna be good!!!!!!!!!!! Also, tiny 'salad bowl' and 'mesculin' lettuces are popping their little heads up. They're so cute, I just wanna clean off their little faces!

'Danvers' carrot tops are about 6" high. I would assume that means they are doing well...

The spinach: well, I only have about 7 plants in my 3 rows... Dunno. I will take whatever I get... I was really hoping for an abundance of spinach because we make smoothies with it all the time!

Garden beans are getting tall! About 12" so far.

One plant of basil and one of parsley doing well, lol.

Pumpkin, cucumber and watermelon plants are thriving. About 18" tall already! They are very hearty plants... The ones to try if you were doing a container garden for the first time. That and romaine. Oh, and the beets, lol.

Corn shoots are 2 inches tall and look good. This ends the report on the good news. If you are faint of heart you may not want to read on...

The bad news:

Cabbage worms got all of my cabbage and most of the baby bok choy! I could just weep. I have been looking forward to these babies for weeks! The cabbage was nearly annihilated! I pulled them and their little friends (not) up and tied them in a plastic bag and sent them far, far away to my neighbor's garden. (kidding!)

The snap beans are tall, but kinda scraggly and yellowish towards the bottom? I'm thinking maybe they got fried by being watered too close to mid-day.

White onions and chives are very scraggly so far. Maybe they don't like the soil here, or maybe they take longer to get hearty?

The last item on the bad news report has to do with the first abundant item in the good news section:

I'm the only one in my family that will touch a beet! Well, I guess the beet is on...

Global warming

Great commercial to pass on an important message of awareness...

But one life to live...

Today is my 6 month anniversary! On December 6th, 2007 I stumbled across the raw food world. I am so thankful as this path has given me a new lease on life and health... For many years I lived simply to educate my children (both scholastically and spiritually), feed my family, and just make sure the daily things of life got done. While these are all very noble and worthwhile pursuits, of which I wouldn't trade a single one, I somehow lost the concept that this is the only life that I have, and this is the only body that the Lord is going to let me use!
www.rawreform.com is the first website that I came across, and Angela's story is impressive! Check it out if you haven't already. She also has a really good section about how to transition into raw foods if you choose to give it a try. (No one recommends jumping in with both feet like I did, lol.) Also, on the right hand side of my blog page here, I've listed many other amazing sites to find out more about raw... and I continue to add more daily as I run across them.

(Like my t-shirt Tiffy bought me? :D I was so tired in this photo after work, feeding horses and gardening!)

Well folks, the results are in. I'm 26 pounds lighter now, and have so much more energy and zest for life. It's as if the live enzymes in the plants are speaking to my body on a cellular level! Dead food, dead energy. Live food, live energy, watch out! :D I am drawn outdoors every moment that I can spare!
I know, I know... you always knew I was strange, lol. The fascinating thing is that I've talked to so many people now on this same path that are experiencing similar feelings. >Back me up here, folks! :D
Moral of the story: I may be strange, but I'm not alone! Hehe...


I'm still in love with green smoothies, if I go a couple days without one (do I hear a weekend?) I crave a green smoothie: my current favorite smoothie is spinach, strawberry, banana. (Holla out to all the Chalmette family that tried this concoction on Mom's day! Miss you!)

I bring a green smoothie or two to work with me every day, much to the entertainment of my coworkers. ("Ewwww, I'll just eat my salad, thanks!"~Patty ;)

I have been making these smoothies in a WalMart blender for 5 months! I was hearing about my raw friends amazing creations using their Vita-mix's and I found myself so jealous of that horsepower! 10X more power than my 'gentle blender' as one friend (Rawbin) called it.

Guess what?

I GOT THE POWER! ***doing the happy dance!!!**

Yep, I got one! Yeee-ayyyy! This is an answer to prayer! You just can't possibly imagine, lol. I had, seriously, prayed that I would somehow be able to get a high-powered blender to help with this lifestyle. There are so many recipes out there for yummi-ness (www.goneraw.com is a great place to start looking up recipes) and I couldn't make any of them! Well, what do you think we found in Sam's Club? A vita-mix demo guy on the very last day of his tour! Thank you Mr. Vitamix man, you were amazing!


Now I can make anything. Yes, yes, I can. And I do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So far in the vita-mix, I have made soups, ice cream (you can hold it upside down and it stays frozen in there!), both fruit and green smoothies, orange mochachino's (thanks lilgirlbigvoice- we do need to get together and drink some of these!), and tonight I made onion bread (in the dehydrator for the next day or two, though, courtesy of a recipe at www.goneraw.com!) and an amazing coconut, almond milk latte-like yummy drink that I am just finishing. It heated it steamy and everything right in the blender container. How cool is that. Lemme know if you want any of the recipes... ;)

All I have left to say is.... Happy anniversary to my health! Hehe... Oop, have to go peak in the dehdrator now! *Poof*'s away like blaqberry...

Tune in tomorrow- honest- I promise to do the garden update! Bok Choy lovers of the world unite! Twitter over- twitter out (YEAH, DrBetsy)