Vegan Momma

I’ve been quiet on Vegan Momma the past few days. I didn’t go anywhere but Aiyana wasn’t feeling well a few days ago so naturally that forced me to take a break. The good news it happened only in the evening and the next day she was fine. I believe the is like the third or fourth time she’s hasn’t felt well in her entire life. I gave her some ginger, and I added lavender essential oil to a carrier oil and massaged her stomach.

Guess what a few days yesterday I wasn’t feeling that great, and so I decided to listen to my body and actually do nothing. Wow, it’s been a while since that has happened. Her grandparents (my parents) watched Aiyana. The entire day and I simply rested and lived on fruits (oranges) and freshly juiced juice. It’s good to take a break from your normal eating habits when you are trying to ward off infection. Supplying my body with foods rich in nutrients was the only medicine I needed to effectively stop any cold for setting up residence in my body.  I also took a steam bath last evening I added tea tree essential oils (good for infection) and lavender essential oil (aids in relaxation) to the water.   Oh…that felt so good!

The times when we aren’t feeling well (rare in this house) I don’t reach for an over the counter remedy. I believe our westernized culture has become entirely too dependent on them. We’ve been programmed to reach in the medicine cabinet and pull out some drug that promises to cure us of some type of ailment. Here’s a homework assignment pull out a drug in your medicine cabinent and research the ingredients that go into it. You should know what is going into your body. I know what goes into many of those products there is no way I want that stuff into my body.

Realizing the connection between mind, body, and spirit, and knowing that we can, often, heal ourselves naturally of these minor ailments that occasionally plague us by the way we treat ourselves as a whole (diet , nutrition, exercise, emotional health.) I headed straight for my kitchen. There are plenty of healing foods that not only taste good, but they nourish and heal our bodies without the unpleasant side effects of over the counter remedies.

I woke up today feeling great. Juices and fruits are some of the best things you consume when you’re not feeling great. It doesn’t take long for the body to assimilate fruits about thirty minutes and when you add juices to the mix you are adding a lot of nutrients since the juice is concentrated. What a great way to be kind to your body, right?

[tags]rest, healing, holistic healing, whole foods, juicing[/tags]

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As a vegan I’m occasionally asked what do I eat on the holidays. Sometimes I find this question amusing because my food consumption is no different from any other day. I nourish my body with healthy & tasty foods. I don’t take a break from eating healthy. The excuses many us make for our poor eating habits is it any wonder why we feel run down. Should we really be surprised by the diseases that plague people in westernized civilizations? Often, we do have control of our health.

Disease usually isn’t pouncing on some unsuspecting victim. Often, we have created an environment that makes disease welcome. It feels right at home wreaking havoc in our bodies. We’ve welcomed it in my the choices we have made with our food, lack of exercise, and how we manage stress. Even with all the disease that plagues westernized cultures many of us will still make excuses about why we cannot change our eating habits. If change were easy many people would be healthy, right?

When asked this question do I take a break from eating my regular food and occasionally indulge in “junk” my answer is always no. That, to me, is like taking a break from quality writing and consciously making the decision to fill my blogs with junk. Knowing that is a representation of myself I could never do that. So why in the world would I fill my body with food that isn’t good for me? That won’t happen.

Realizing that what I choose to put into my body has a direct effect on how I will ideally feel why in the world would I want to feed it with foods that aren’t nourishing my body. If we received a negative reaction to the bad food choices we make I believe many people would make better health choices; however, it normally doesn’t happen that way it takes days, weeks, months, or years for problems to come to the surface.

I do think many of us use food as a crutch and allow ourselves “treats”. Treats for me are something that is beneficial for my body not something that can potentially harm it. Maybe if we eased up on these “treats” we wouldn’t see the of cancers, diabetes, high cholesterol, hair loss, high blood pressure, eczema, memory loss, depression, etc., Are you getting the picture the choices we make regarding food can have a major impact on our health. All these diseases can be brought on by the choices we make.

What was on my menu yesterday? Nothing major I ate fruits and vegetables. My biggest meal yesterday was a “big salad”. I did something different and added an agave ginger dressing. I’ve made it before, and it has received rave reviews when I brought it to work. I usually eat my salads plain; however, if you are new to this using a low calorie, no fat dressing is a way to break yourself into a healthier way of eating a salad (if you are the type that slathers high fat dressing onto your salads which make the salad “unhealthy”.

What did my daughter have eggless eggrolls, raw zucchini pasta with thick and chunky tomato sauce, and fruit pudding.

Our society is bombarded with unhealthy choices that can cause problems to our bodies. I say its time we take control of our health and just say no to unhealthy living.

[tags]vegan, healthy choices, nutrition, unhealthy[/tags]

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One of the gifts I distributed this year went over well. I thought it was simple, but my father liked it a lot! He had me test it shortly after I gave him this gift, a personalized domain name. I never thought something that simple would cause so much happiness. He likes it a lot.

Since I was in the buying mood, I bought another domain. I bought that simply for freelance writing. Checking out Chris Blogging, the freelance writer, and Theda K, another freelance writer. I recently discovered their websites and I’ve added them to my great list of links and RSS feed. Their content is excellent and I would recommend my readers stop by and see what they have to say.

Anyway after viewing their virtual homes I thought it might be a smart idea to have a website that focused solely on writing.  I’m addicted to writing after all. It will be where I can market my work. When I think about it, I have done writing before the only difference was I did it in the corporate setting. It was mainly writing training manuals, web content, and daily, weekly, and monthly reports. At the time, I didn’t think of it as writing. I just thought of it as my job.

The past few weeks I’ve done very well with freelance writing but that is because I’ve worked hard at making it happen. The work didn’t just fall in my lap. My focus is connected to nutrition and fitness the jobs that I’m interested in are focused on that also. At Healing Yourself Naturally I’m currently writing a serious about constipation what was originally going to be one article is going to turn into something more initially I had planned on writing this article in the summer time.
[tags]domain purchase, freelance writing, healing yourself naturally[/tags]

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This photo was taken yesterday. It’s of my daughter Aiyana and I. Aiyana is four years old.

[tags]photography, Aiyana. Christmas holiday[/tags]

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Isn’t my nephew cute? This picture was taken yesterday if you closely look you’ll see Aiyana’s red pants making an appearance, under my nephew, as he was passed from his great grandfather to his grandfather (my father.) It was wonderful taking a tiny break and spending time with my family.

My day would have been complete if I knew C was ok he’s still away on the ship, and I haven’t heard from him in about four days. The longest I’ve gone without contact has been about three days. I do know they are busy and were trying to wrap everything up so they could be home for the Christmas holiday so I’m hoping all is good.
Today I’m hanging with Aiyana, and hopefully I’ll be able to take a shot of more than her legs.

Whatever holiday you celebrate I’m hoping it is a joyous occasion.

Blessings,

Opal & Aiyana

[tags]Christmas holiday, family, photography[/tags]

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