How you make your bed, thus will you rest

My grandmother , the one the only Mary Mahalski mumbled this a lot. In adulthood, I rarely make my bed an I rarely sleep, so maybe some truth in this.
But the context for this today readers is about care both for yourselves and others. In this world there is a lot of unrest and its hard not to get sucked in overwhelmed and let our fear make us ignorant, angry and bigoted. It is hard to rest when there is pain and our monsters no longer live under our beds or our dreams.
There are so many ways to go with this but in this world the great equalizer is every human must  eat, hydrate, relieve themselves and sleep. Any time without any or a combination of these things ends badly. So today I talk about food, but really I talk about nutrients and how we rest for ourselves and others.
I grew up with two grandmothers that loved to feed people . Even now as an adult cooking for 3 or when my college age son is working crazy hours 2, feels impossible. For my grandmothers Mary and Marion, even when there was not a lot there was enough and enough to share. For a child of MTV and Band Aid and Farm Aide to know people were allowed to be hungry blew my mind. When I stopped my nutritional journey, my rest and peace were shattered and like so many I became a member of the diet cult. It was hard to care for others because metabolically I was broken.
I know, I know, folks love Jenny and Weight Watchers and hey Oprah gives us permission to have bread EVERY DAY!!!!!!  Great except I know I am not alone out there, bread every day makes me want carbs in high volumes which awakens a sugar demon. If these programs worked for you , that is a good thing. But for the rest of us who questioned  being in meetings watching the same 14 woman who had been there for 7 years not eat or drink until weigh in , or be happy today was a pig out day, our fight over a chemical 1 point candy bar, or wonder why the "special measuring cups were magic", you get my disillusion. I have met women who eat snacks that are chemicals , low fat dairy with splenda or measure pasta down to the last strand to get their magic points . This seems like a never ending story and the women I met at 5 or 10 pounds overweight call themselves cows or pigs. how is that healthy? And they don't rest , they are always anxious with themselves, how they or their family is perceived.
Real food is healthy. For me the way I feel best is trying to stay in the 80/20 of paleo and ancestral diets. And I have had major push back. From women who paid 300 dollars to eat a 400 calorie liquid/quasi diet or who have created some ingrained deep food rituals that won't let them have a great high quality piece of dark chocolate but will let them have 2 diet cokes.They say all the research that proves real food does not work? Whose research ? Real Food takes your bed from a college vomit stained Doritos laden futon and transforms it into a down comfy bed with massage and heat and unicorns tucking you in at night . Real food fills your body and your soul, rest comes as a benefit. The message you get from the cult if diet is eating real food is hard, too expensive and cannot be maintained. My grandparents lived and thrived before Soda, Chips and Pizza Rolls. Many times they had to make /kill their food, we can now find those same foods without the same labor, which is the opposite of hard. Eat well and love the size you are while eating well, even if your plans are to reduce that size. Celebrate giving yourself nourishment not just filling your gut and your journey becomes about health not skinny. And that folks is the rest . You make yourself worth  a priority you choose, taking away fake food, fake people, fake beliefs. And you come back to you. Even if like me the you are a crunchy weird duck. I can sleep well at night with that
So my challenge to you is toss that weight loss meal replacement canned chemical shake and have an indulgent healthy smoothy . Enjoy the sensation
of goodness instead of slight tin. And rise up from your rest to space where real food feeds the real you!


Love Morning Smoothie
1 cup coconut or almond milk
1 tsp of cacao powder
1tsp maca ( good for the adrenals and ladies your sex drive, LEAVE OUT IF PREGNANT OR NURSING)
1/2 cup sweet frozen cherries
drizzle of honey
1/4 cup of strong brewed and cooled green tea

Blend well, add ice if your prefer a more frozen type drink !

Hunger will lead a fox out of the forest

OK so this is a phrase that sounds better in Polish. And I think my grandfather substituted duck for fox but never the mind. The underlying idea is : that hunger will move you beyond your comfort zone.This can be literal hunger or passion for work, a cause or play. It is that gnaw that either drives you ahead or cannibalizes you from the inside. After years of soul self , I prefer a drive rather than a gnaw. I think its human nature to want that and yet so often we fight against that nature and settle, slowly starving. And I tell you its hard to be a big girl who starves herself.

Let me be clear, when your soul is emotionally starved, come out of the forest. Seek nourishment, community and ease. But keep focus. Mindless wandering and grabbing out of fear and pain can get you trapped even more. In our day and age noise is everywhere and its hard to focus. Politicians spewing hate, Oprah raving about eating bread every day, bacon good, bacon bad , etc etc and the lists drive on.To survive this we must find that space where we are OK in our head,even for a minute to re set and revive.

So gentle readers here are some tips for finding focus, for being the sly fox and not the one shot in the hen house.

• Take some time to understand how us being plugged in makes us less connected in real time community than our parents and grandparent were and how that has effected us all. Robert Putnam wrote a wonderful book called Bowling Alone. Part nerdy stat treat, part wake up call, it walks us through how we have disconnected from each other and ways to move through this. http://bowlingalone.com/
• Find time in the day to recharge. Yoga Nidra is great way to do so with no yoga mat required. It is a practice that can be done sitting comfortably with the intention of taking time. For some free Yoga Nidra podcasts, you can search iTunes or http://www.yoganidranetwork.org/downloads  
• Paleo, Primal ,Vegan or just an eater, the more whole food you consume the more healed and focused you are. In your focus remember the gratitude of being able to eat healthy foods. Give back by finding a local food system to support .http://www.feedingamerica.org/

pozdrowienia
Rachel 

Taming the sugar demon with pineapple custard

Hello my name is Rachel and I am a sugar addict. I did not start life as such. Growing up I ate fermented foods, chicken livers and my veggies pretty regular. The treat was at Lent Friday night pizza and I got to have a Coke. I leaned to sour things and salt. I felt balanced.

Then the demon came out . When I was 13 two things happened to me at once. One I began to understand I was more attracted to girls then guys. And two, our neighbor died. This ripped open a wound I had from childhood, that from 4-9 years old this man sexually abused me. He threatened to kill my grandmother if I told. At 8 there was an incident at school where someone said I told someone about a friends death. And even though I was not the person who told her, someone else did in spite and anger, it came back to me. My friend was devastated and I was concerned for her but in that all the adults did not validate that I had not questioned the death to be mean but it was two conflicting stories. I felt no one believed me and if they they could not believe I would not intentionally hurt my friend,why would they believe someone was hurting me. It was the day I decided to stop letting people in and stop really knowing truth. My childhood is truly an erased cassette tape. My memories from 4-19 are very few and far between. As a teen I hid in shadows and was given mega doses of antidepressants and lithium. And I found sugar.It soothed me, hyped me and with my young hormones out of wack and my reality gone was a replacement to injure myself when I could not cut. I would eat sugar until I was sick.

At 19 when my fake world shattered and I had to live in the real world and make amends to myself and others for damage done, I moved to Oregon. I lived and worked in a Mormon household. Pam and her husband were proponents of real food and I began to feel and see health. Real food healed me and helped me deal with the wounds to my soul. A year after I moved to Oregon,I began school at the University of Oregon. Newly out and feeling secure, I began to make friends with folks in my housing. One guy in particular, we had a laid back go to the store, talk between classes friendship. That is until the night he attempted to rape me in my apartment. At 44, my gut would have been kick him in the balls,call the cops. At 21, I felt I was doing penance for all the bad, that happened in my life while I ignored life. I went back on a sugar binge and learned what so many sexual assault victims know. Extra weight can be a security to keep people away. And when you don't think you are worthy the fake hugs from sugar are your friend. And the demon stays with you damaging your body.

Like any kind of addiction , you hit bottom often before you see what is broken or how to begin to fix it. My bottom came in my moment of supreme happiness. At the same time our adoption was finalizing, my self destructive behaviors caught up with me and I was diagnosed with diabetes. That rocked me. All I wanted was to be an awesome mom, but how could I do that sick? The diabetic meal plans never worked well for me, the ones I got from websites and nutritionist. Grains even in small amounts make me crave sugar. That is my body. When my heart hurts I revert often back to that little girl who feels she deserves to be hurt, and crave crap. You can understand what sugar does in your body but until you really know the role it plays in your emotions and food, it has the upper hand. I deal with sugar addiction constantly and this past year in losing parents, siblings and mobility, yep I pity partied myself with crap. I paid for it. But I am out of the shame spiral and back to I am worth so much and I deserve health. Weight loss programs never worked for me, when I saw woman yo-yo ing for 15 years at a meeting, I though you have watched enough. My shift had to be eat because I am worthy not to be skinny. Fill myself up with nutrients. For me, authors like Diane Sanfillippo and Liz Wolfe literally saved my life. Paleo and primal eating I knew made me feel better, these bloggers and authors made me realize this was not a diet but a way of life and a healthy one at that. That caring for my body with food was sustainable. And we see results. My AC1 is now almost to normal non diabetic levels, my constant nausea gone.

But every once in a while stress or every 21 days, my demon pokes out his head. Giving into carb laden or processed sweets will cascade me on a path of overindulging, increased cravings and nausea. So I look for comfort foods. As a child my grandmother made egg custard for me because my favorite Winnie the Pooh book had a scratch and sniff of custard that Kanga made for Roo. It was hard enough to miss my grandmother: and with mom and dad passing so close together the loss makes me crave memories both mental and physical.

So dear readers, I have made a custard that keeps me on track, adds warmth and a touch of sweetness to my soul when it needs it. It is dairy free, yummy and with black-strap molasses a slower burning sugar. These will make 4-6 servings depending on ramekin size. I love it warm or set it in a bowl with some warm water to reheat.So next time your sugar demon raises his head, know you are worth more than what he wants from you, give some sweetness but embrace the warm comfort of nutrition too !
pozdrowienia
Rachel

Pineapple custard 
1 can full fat coconut milk
2 tsps almond milk
1 tsp of natural vanilla
2 tsps blackstrap molasses
2 whole eggs plus 3 egg yolks well beaten ( in a bowl for next steps)
1 tsp ( or less ) of  maple sugar
1/4 cup finely diced pineapple

In ramekins
place sprinkles of pineapple and maple sugar
place ramekins in a deep casserole dish and set aside

preheat over to 325 degrees

In a saucepan combine all ingredients but eggs
Heat on medium , stirring to not scorch
Cook 305 minutes and then take off heat and let it set one minute
SLOWLY add a small batch of hot liquid into eggs and whisk quickly to incorporate , whisk in small batches to liquid and eggs incorporated
DO NOT RUSH  or you will have scrambled eggs
When incorporated put back on stove 2-3 minutes low stirring frequently until mix coats back of spoon
Pour mix into ramekins
In the casserole dish create a water bath , using warm water to fill to right above the rim of ramekin but not in the mix
bake at 325 for 50-60 minutes until set and firm, pineapple will rise to top
Put your feet up and enjoy!


            

Death, birth and taming your monkeys

Nie mój cyrk, nie moje małpy : not my circus not my monkeys. My grandfather Hank used to say the not my circus part all the time when I was a child. These expression now with a popular memes on the internet is giving credit to things in life you cannot control or more interestingly maybe things you should try not to control .

But what if it is your circus and your monkeys , those pesky thoughts that drive you to do food, booze, apathy , fear or worse yet nothing. Its riding it out knowing the circus now is in town in full bloom like an American Horror Story episode,freak show. The monkeys will be throwing crap and if your not careful that mental poop will get on you. If you do not take care of it right away, it will dry and it will stain.

Since moving to Oregon 22 years ago , I have made several deep connections and friendships with folks. even if we do not talk and hang out all the time.The love and care and connection are there and we start off right where we left off. One of these friends is Jay. Sign Language interpreter by trade, artist by heart she like me can dial into her earthy, crunchy, drum circle self very easily. She is also an amazing mom to her daughter who at 4 is one of the funniest and most insightful toddlers I know.

Sometimes as adults we would give anything to give up our adult card, go hide in the fort ,eat cookies and nap. Jay and her former partner have had to bypass the fort and be the adults and parents that we should strive to be. While not together, when they are with their daughter they show the grace of putting your kiddo first. Because of shared custody, they have made the decision to live in the same town , so their daughter has less travel time, one preschool and more stability. This means a 2 more hour distance between us. To be honest it quite unraveled me. My friend and I are not joined at the hip , we are not in contact daily but my monkeys were screaming. After a year of so much change another perceived loss paralyzed me. For me that loss is unraveling, silently. My insides felt like prickly and convinced this was the end.

Jay had timed her move to be after the c-section of her new baby later this month. Like all good mom plans, baby has her own . And we welcomed her into the world at 36 weeks and 6 days. Healthy and sassy. As timing had it her bestie was away and I was able to be in with jay when little miss was born. I have been in a few births and the miracle never gets old. For me though, this time left a bigger imprint on my soul  After so much death and loss, I was in a moment of life and in my friend I saw the rapture and joy that is almost non measurable: The divine of the start of your child's life. It brought me back to the moment in really time when I saw my son for the first time peering out of a door at his foster home. It was the start of my son's life in that he now had all the unconditional love, support and devotion that new baby was experiencing . Mom was a trooper, baby was healthy and I was no longer unraveling . Two hours is in the span of life is nothing to travel to those you love. And its OK. Change is there to shape you not break you. In our all or nothing world we forget that, growth only comes from movement. Movement has no intrinsic value , we are the ones who assign the value, we design the circus billboard before we even see the show.

So my dear readers if the circus comes to town and its not yours : Don't buy a ticket. If it is yours see the show but do not become part of the act. Have faith that the circus will pull stakes and pack up and move on.
pozdrowienia
Rachel 

I am adding some of Jay's art here. She is a great artist and can do commission pieces, figured I would give her the plug LOL.

The older I get the more primal and Polish I become

My past year has been a doozy. It began simple enough that my 9 years in my job and dedication earned me national recognition, mine and a friends film project was wrapping up interviews, my dad was fighting back from cancer, my health was improving and my almost adult son ( adopted at age 16) was finding his way. I thought my path was OK.

The universe however has a way of bitch slapping you to your correct path where you have to admit you are tired and broken and the weird and eccentric you is fighting to get out. It will my dear readers win every time. We all know this. We all feel it at times, its how do we listen to it , give up control, really put stock in faith and walk through pain and realization to come out healthier in the end.

So flash back to summer 2015 and Chicago, winning an award from peers in anti hunger and poverty work. Humbled and floored that these innovators and passionate folk, p[icked me a leader of the year.
No clue how floored I would soon be. After the award doing photographers, the photographer asked me to step back, into no more stage. The result a break in the leg, a torn ACL and sprained shoulder and from flying home on a new break, a blood clot. Summer in the hottest month not great but I kept telling myself, I can weather this.

Then came the call so many of us as we age dread. Cast and all I needed to get to Florida because dad's cancer was back and he was unconscious and in the hospital. This 4 days prior our call was upbeat and positive. Traveling to watch your father pass and living in a hospital room for 6 days is emotional tough. Doing it on a new break without help awful. Running up bills I couldn't afford because walking up and down my parents flight of stairs incredibly daunting pain in a cast.
Watching my former boxer tough as nails dad, down to 90 pounds and dying , well forget heartbreaking. It was put my heart in a blender: hit puree and go time. I did get to be there with him as he had his last breath and held him before family came up . Then it was time for me to put my feelings away. My brother fell apart and I chased him on crutches all over a hospital making sure security did not arrest him as he wept and hit walls and babbled uncontrollably. I pulled it together for mom and for my son. The abuse I gave my soul by not hearing the pain was unmanageable ,the abuse from over using my leg in cast did long term damage.I could not fly home and my drive across country seeing roadside America on pain meds will be another post , another time. But in this drive my partner and I of 8 years made a final agreement and started another path in our life.I had known since I met my partner that she ( was) transgender. Not living as his true self male was slowly killing him and us and it was time to really look at what living for her ( now him ) and us meant. Many other blog posts on this to come.

Grief does many things to people some we understand, some we do not. My son had never met his grandfather face to face and our plan was because dad was doing some well after his upcoming surgery, kiddo was going to go to Florida for a week and hang with his grandparents. My father adored my son from the first photo and my dad never a chatty Cathy on the phone would just take long conversations with his grandson. My father had more of a presence in the 2 years he was in my sons life than most of his bio family. Now all of a sudden grandpa ed was gone and he was grieving not just him but I think this is where his door opened to grieving his childhood and trying to find where he came from so he could move on in his life. Add to that part of him while supporting mom's transition to dad, there was a unconscious jealousy that he was no longer the only important man in my life. ( dear readers so many post on these topics coming , you will really want to check back) 

At this point resilient  became the key word but I forgot the rabbit hole you can go down when you just solider through. When you are so proud to be a survivor, where you let your trauma define you and not your soul, you stop living and just survive. We as humans have a god like quality that makes us need to thrive and when we forget that, we forget ourselves. After Thanksgiving, my son and I got into an argument over a misunderstanding ( both of us too raw in our emotions)   He said things to me I never though he would and he left. For almost 3 weeks no word. At this time I was a walking wound , I got up went to work , ate crap, and did not sleep. My fear and anxiety over this outweighed  that I should have been mad at the little shit for pulling this. My partner and I fought for 6 months to bring our son home and that he was gone wrecked my heart and mind. My mother who has moved to California after dad died with my brother and now closer to her grandchildren and great grandchildren assured me it would be OK . And  then the final straw hit me.

On December 21 2015, almost 90 days after my dad left this world , my mother passed away without warning in her sleep. My son who had become a grandma devotee came home and we grieved together. My brother fell apart and in a stand I did not even conceive would not take or answer my calls as I tried to get to California.  You cannot make plans via text , you cannot get information about whether you need to borrow from your retirement to pay for you moms funeral via text , you cannot check if anyone is ok via text. I was being treated for me as a problem. Then it hit me , this was my mother I  had the right to worry and demand basic respect and communication from my family on this. I could not offer to pull money from my retirement if when I kept asking about how we were paying this funeral that all received was again a text that life insurance which I did not think she had would cover it. So it hit me over the years all my family had stayed with me , some pissed at me when they ran away to have an affair and left their spouse at my place. But the theme was I cared about them I wanted them to be ok but when I put my needs first , they had no use for me and I was the bitch, they never had accountability in the event . So I was done. Figured if they wanted me to help they could call and the only thing that then mattered was seeing my mom one last time . I wish in hindsight I just walked away but I texted them all and said goodbye. I really think that hurt me because nowhere ( and I hope I am wrong) do I feel like that mattered for them.
That road trip on Christmas ( yet another to come post on forgiveness with your child when you both are so emotionally raw) started a grieving and healing that is my current path. I am by death and bullshit without any parents, or siblings, while it is painful , there is a side that is freeing.

I no longer believe that others matter more than me. My life, my feelings, my body , my boundaries matter.  The weight I carry is going away as emotional weights are being lifted . I have gone from crap to paleo/primal eating. My body knows what it needs, I have just been ignoring it because I ignored my own worth . That has caused me to damage my body the way my self esteem was. I know I can be the caring loving person I am and still put me first. I am learning that people and things not ok with this new mindset are not people who really want to love me and were in a sense using what I could provide to them without having to have any repercussions.

This world right now is cynical and at times bitter. Call me a hippy or a liberal or a dreamer but I don't want this to be my world. I am the only one who can be responsible for changing my lens and I have to be ok enough in me to not give a flying fuck what people think. Grabbing life by the babuska is my model to get there. Growing up I was surrounded by older Polish and Ukraine women, sturdy hearty woman, laughing at bingo, drinking coffee at the Hungry Peddler( shout out to former NJ life) eating fat and knowing themselves. These woman would wear housedresses with sweats under them when cold and not give  hoot. They never lived by the cult of weight watchers or jenny. They never fat shamed. They walked and gardened for exercise, cooked and ate with love, slept and had community. Their blue windbreaker may have been a Woolworths special but their babuskas were beautiful, rich, colorful. They knew where to put value. I see that now in Oregon where I live by a large Russian Orthodox community. At the public pool in a swinsuit circa WWII , in all the arm flaps and soft padded spots is a tough as nails duo of 70 plus year old women kicking my ass at water aerobics, keeping their head above water to protect the beatufil head covering. I love these ladies and I want the secrets that the last great generation had about their hearts, their bodies, their quality of life.  Quality of life that we have lost to be hip, modern ,"better".

So here it is I am a losing weight, lesbain in love with a transgendered man  adopted teen son paleo/primal soul. the details of my journey are mine and all of these things press on the pain points for growth but the growth is beautiful as we come to it. But my journey I bet looks like yours dear reader. Each of us has a story, each of  of us are searching to bring ourselves love and laughter and helath. Sometimes putting ourselves first seems the hardest thing to do and sometimes we do not want to acknowledge change is needed or walk through pain. But we can together.  I hope you continue to join me on chatting about growing yourself, growing your health and growing your humor. I hope that the posts, recipes and links here help you find your own wisdom. Take a deep breathe and grab the babuska with me!
pozdrowienia
Rachel