Right Livelihood

Life seems to be picking up speed, thankfully, in the direction of our dreams.

I re-branded another blog of mine, which had gone unused after its original purpose had been served.  Namely, it was a space where I could unload thoughts and worries as I dealt with the AUD of my loved one.  That's good news, right?  Yes :)  Spaceman hit his 6 month anniversary of being vodka and binge free and also navigated the anniversary of the passing of his brother with flying colors.  We seem to be taking off from that adversary in ways that both heal and feel like rewards.  It's amazing when two people each do their own inner work to eradicate troubles and heal wounds.  And, it makes sense.  We all have pasts that trail us from time to time.  It's good to come together and tackle them as a team. :)

But what's better than even that????

Building a life together around the concept of Right Livelihood.  I think I first heard that term back when I was reading the Conversations With God series.  This is the concept of aligning one's way of earning a living with their Higher Self's purpose.  Spaceman and I have a huge common bond between us where we both greatly value switching to a local food economy and living as sustainably as we can.

So we garden together.  We put our hands in the dirt while listening to the birds and, generally, we spend a great deal of time outdoors together.  Right now, that's a suburban backyard, or a nearby river (fishing!), but our big dream is to move to a more rural setting and set up a road-side produce stand, for starters.  

The dream is much bigger than just that, but we try not to focus too much on the what or how just yet.  We plan to let the Universe sort out the details, draw in the opportunities as we grow closer to actually implementing our plans.  And with the most hindering of issues put firmly behind us, we are starting to feel the excitement of that future.

So I re-branded that website, which I loved the name of, towards gardening topics.  It covers homesteading as well, things like food preservation for now.  What I envision for that website is for it to follow us right into our move and through the establishment of our small farm and farm house.  But for now, it's mostly my garden pictures and a few recipes made with our produce.  

I'm finding the community well established over on Wordpress.  In the way that people come by, comment, and follow, it's quite like my old Xanga days.  Only, the community of Xanga was about spirituality and this one is more specific in nature.  It's just what I want at this time.  In fact, it's brought about one particular opportunity that seems to have jumped out of the woods at me!

It's a leap towards what we want to do with this blog.  I say "we" because spaceman is 1000% on-board with an online presence for our small homestead life.  We see it as a possible future residual income opportunity, if we can build up an audience.  This will also help support our homesteading lifestyle when we get there.  And, why not start NOW?  Why wait?  It makes far better sense to have as much of our learning curve, as much as our support system, up and running smoothly BEFORE we transition into that lifestyle, meaning: before the move.  Because, let's face it: Moving to a potentially unimproved parcel of land will be HARD WORK tailoring it to our needs.  If we can have as much of our life-transition, well, transitioned, before  we head over there, then that's far less a scattered approach to it all and will help us keep our calm, keep our wits about ourselves, and hopefully even greater opportunities will be attracted in (think keeping vibes high/Law of Attraction).  

And so, it is with this spirit of "Git R Done" that we started this gardening blog.  It's really just me who writes it, but spaceman is ever interested and encourages me consistently.  I stepped into that blog with these intentions and low and behold, my first "break" has already come about.  A blog I visited returned the click through to my blog and has asked me for an interview!  The topic is organic gardening, and she says she prefers to interview newby-ish gardeners because she finds many of her listeners (this will be an audio podcast) are also new to gardening and they need to hear the kinds of processes and follies that new gardeners face.  Experts are great for researching things, but they often gloss over the lessons that failure teaches best. 

So, I'm stepping cleanly outside my comfort zone and allowing myself to be recorded in an interview regarding our organic gardening experiences!  I'm nervous, but I do think I will have enough to say.  And worst case, if it turns out poorly, it's not a live interview and can be discarded.  Therefore I am purposefully not mentioning who is doing the interviewing... until I know for sure it's a "go".  At the very least, it's like a job interview, even a bad one is practice for having better ones in the future.  And in the future, I am considering a even stronger online presence in the world of homesteading - so better get used to it, eh? :)

And that's my good news report for today. Hope your day is fantabulous!

Great News!

I just have to pop in and tell you all some REALLY great news.

My daughter just got done with her Asthma evaluation and she reports she "got really high percentages" on her blow out the candles test!  

This has never happened!!!!

Thank you KETO!!!!

She told the nurse what she had been doing and the nurse acted like she was interested in keto because of this!  So cool!

I'm so happy, tears keep welling up.

She probably didn't ask, but I'm wondering if she can wean off asthma meds now?!?!

Fat-Adapted

Learning to cook keto style is not too hard, as long as you know a few tricks. There's a bratt with very little sugar: Johnsonville Beer Bratts. There's a marinara with less sugar, Rao's Homemade Marinara. You can use zucchini instead of noodles, flat or spiraled. Shrimp is carb free! Dry cooking wines are great additions to sauces, just make sure you find a brand with little to no carbs. It's possible! Meijer white cooking wine qualifies. Alfredo sauces can be made with cream cheese, heavy whipping cream and a little shredded parmesan. (I also add that white wine!) "Chips" can be made from baked parmesan piles, or... zucchini discs (which I have the recipe for but having had the chance yet to make). My point is... food on keto is not lacking. In fact, it's delicious! One of my favorite breakfasts, pre-keto, turns out to be a perfect keto breakfast: fried eggs and half a mashed avodaco, mixed up with a little Bragg's Sprinkle and sea salt. mmmmm I made my first lasagna, my first cheesecake, my first pecan desserts, all with keto recipes and I am never lacking for yummy things to eat. The thing is... I'm less and less hungry, so I don't get triggered to go raid the pantry as much. Hours go by and I don't even think about food. I'm SATISFIED. I love this WOE (way of eating). It was so worth the temporary symptoms from my body begrudgingly switching over from carb-adapted to fat-adapted energy production. That's not a fun week or two, but you get through it. You continue onward. And out on this side of being fat-adapted, this WOE rocks! Yummy food, whole food, not feeling starved, easily and consistently dropping weight (I am not even working out yet!), allergies disappeared, acne cleared up quite a lot, don't feel drained after meals, can stay full feeling for hours and hours and hours... and did I mention yummy food??? I feel pretty darn good. And I love knowing that lowering the inflammation in my body HAS to be helping my gut health. My bowels move better. Though I still assist them some, I had been trying that pre-keto and not having consistent success. Now I have consistent and easier success. My lactose intolerance seems GONE (I don't have any low fat milk products -think lactose/dairy sugars- anymore. I've pulled my belt in a notch. The scales says I'm down 10 lbs in nearly 6 weeks, a nice slow but consistent weight loss that should continue. And I just don't have that nagging feeling of, "gawd, I hate dieting!" I can seriously see myself eating this way for the rest of my life, for the most part. I say "for the most part" because I have potatoes and tomatoes that will be harvested soon, and year after year. I won't let them go to waste. They will get canned, pickled and preserved. Then I can crack one open and eat a sparingly. In the future, I intend on focusing my gardening on things that are more keto friendly. I love being fat-adapted! Whowouldathunkit!

Edit: Here's the typical weight loss pattern of Keto...

Home

I'm sitting at the very desk I sat 18 years ago when I first started blogging.  It's the same desk, the same room, the same house... heck, the same town as I grew up.  My life is here.  

But it's not.

I dream of something else...

I dream of a few acres or more of land in the mountains, south facing.   We'll stand on our porch and watch the morning sun rise in the east and set to our right over the horizon.  My house does that, this one that I'm in.  And spaceman's family home where he grew up (and was living before he moved here), that house also faces south... only it's on a mountain already.  

It's a given that spaceman and I will move away first solid chance we get.  And we often talk about how much space we want to grow things and what kinds of things we want to grow.  We talk about the green house, the cellar, the fields and probably most of all: chickens.

What we don't talk as much about is, the house.  Luckily we have similar aspirations in a house, too.  Simple, but not lacking.  

While it's fun to talk about these things from time to time, it's still a ways off.  But something seems to have changed gears lately.  Little things have been manifesting with a faster pace, and more frequently.  And my dreams are no exception.

I find dreams are my favorite tool for gaining self-understanding.  Dreams can be as creative as the creative force of life itself.  Tarot is another favorite, but dreams come easier to me.

The other night I had a really good feeling dream.  That's rare enough, but this one had to do with the house spaceman and I are building.  I'd like to share it with you.

Ready?

(please forgive the broken style of writing, i'm hardly awake when recording dreams)

Dreamt my brother and sisters and I and all our people (kids) stopped at a taco Bell for lunch, to go.  Karen and i split a chicken taco but i said i can't eat the tortilla.  We got separated and i think she ate the whole thing, but whatever. 

I felt like we were all on our way to help someone at someplace.  It didn't feel like me at my new home, but i guess it was cause eventually they all showed up.  but i got there first.  It was the first day we got the keys and i wanted to explore.

There was a fence in the side yard along the main road, way out past the yard, even though there was more yard beyond that.  There was a giant knee board stuck in the fence. in order to pull it out, which i did, i had to also remove two wake boards that were pinning it in there.   I had no idea why they left this behind. i found little toys here and there across the property, not a lot, just a handful, but it was odd.  like you could tell somebody happy had lived here.

Next I turned on the faucet by the fence.  I got busy fussing with those boards again and before I knew it, the yard behind the fence filled up nicely with water and it revealed an edge (bank) that i hadn't noticed before, though it looked like if it broke through over that way the neighbors wouldn't like it. they'd get flooded!  I went to do something else then when i came back the water had all drained out through a little ravine to the left and down a hill i couldnt see beyond.  Bummer, but it had potential.  I remember thinking where did the water go???  Then focusing, I zoomed in on the crack in the dirt where the water ran out.  I then thought, okay and moved on.

People started showing up and wandering around, but so was I.  The house was blue, light faded blue and older but well kept.  It was along a busy road to the front and along the Great Miami River south of downtown Dayton.  The plot was narrow but long, lots of "side yard".  it was open grass to the left and wooded to the right.

The house was compact and had all kinds of little thoughtful cubby holes to store things or reveal hidden sleeping spots by raising a sliding wooden door.  it had playful things in the house and has creative solutions.  I loved this place the more i explored it!

Out back was the coolest.  There was a queen sized canopy bed with muted faded pink & white sheer curtains with one side of the top pulled back so that two people could lay there and look up at the Stars at night. That was my favorite feature!!  I remember thinking, i can't believe they left this behind!

The only thing was... the backyard itself was only a few feet from the bank of the river. it had about a 15-20 ft drop off a (cliff) that was not reinforced. I knew then this is why the house was sold.  For a second i thought about turning around and reselling it....  but I kept wandering the house and finding more cool stuff, and loving it...  I went outside and started taking scenic pictures of it with the river and the sunset, so beautiful.

Don't get too hung up on the end.  It could have been something in our past or something in our distant future.  I'm not going to not live life to the fullest and me in that dream knew that, too.  In the dream, I went right back to admiring the house and surroundings, getting creative, like the house and those who lived there before.  

The house in this dream is a faded shade of my favorite color, blue. It's old, the pink and white sheer curtains are faded out, too.  Why pink? to be honest, I loathe pink, but this was so faded out and it's "small potatoes" in my perspective to the wonderfulness of that bed and canopy... spaceman and I often lay together under the stars at night - GETTING EATEN BY MOSQUITOS. lol

This house had an energy about it that was really good, "like happy people had lived there".  In fact, creativity was evident in the very walls of the place, the cubby holes, the places to hang out and just be.  Toys could be found about from a non perfect house, a lived in house, with kids who enjoyed using their imaginations for play.  The river... well water in my dreams are turbulence or stagnacy or depth or resistance.  But in my waking life, rivers are life!  I think they are all one in the same.  It's the element of water, emotion, in all its manifestations.  We very much want to live next to a river.  

Even the knee and wake boards, and taco bell make some varying degrees of sense.  Dreams start off weird, so Taco bell with the family on a moving day?  Sure, okay. Sets the dream up. The knee and wake boards being stuck in the fence for a really long time?  Maybe people don't have to go riding that river of emotion and turbulence much at this house and they wedged them into the fence to be used for something else.

I think the pond appearing and disappearing is a lesson in how quickly things can manifest, depending on desires.  Again, it's a clear message to my waking self to take the whole dream as fuel and focus for our home.  Our next home will be like this, but this one, where we live right now?  ... it is already become like that in many ways. Every single day feels like that.  And what better way to manifest the home of our dreams than to begin living it when before it becomes reality.

Unexpected Joys

It brings me to tears watching my 18 year old daughter begin to slay her obesity problem.  Ever since I found out about how antibiotics destroy the gut health, and vaccines carry a real cost, too... (She had c-diff at 6 mos old, and tubes in her ears at 7 mos old and Epstein Barre syndrome at 14 mos old.)   Well, I look back at all the antibiotics the docs prescribed her as an infant and see that my going along with status quo medical treatment puts the blame on me just as much as our eff'ed up medical system.  I trusted them.  I was wrong to do so.  And SHE has paid the price all her life with illness after illness, asthma that she has not grown out of, and... OBESITY.  The last one is partially due to her destroyed beneficial gut bacteria and my need to feed my kids convenience foods, being a stressed out single mother.  

Last month I decided to try a particular diet because Dr. Caryolyn Dean, who I am following for advice on my (now gone due to ReMag use) heart palpitations and IBS-C, suggested a Keto-based diet to heal leaky gut syndrome, which I know I have.  I never got around to reading her PDF ebook on it, and so I rushed in the week before my start date to listed to you tube video after video on the subject, frequently out loud after dinner.  

One night that week, my daughter came in the kitchen and sat down to ask me questions about "this diet I'm going on".  I told her to watch some Dr. Ken Berry videos (who I had found earlier that week). She sat there for a long 45 minutes watching videos of her own accord.  I sat there with her as a show of support, even though I had seen all of them already.

She proclaimed that night that she wanted to do the diet with me.  I was SHOCKED, happily!

Fast forward to 2 weeks into the diet... I am down 8 lbs and she is down 13!  She just texted me and said she hasn't weighed that much since her sophomore year in high school.  She's super stoked and REALLY INTO learning and tweaking as she goes along.  She's in FB groups, talking to friends who are also on it.  Each weekend we are cooking meals together, a week ahead.  She's learning to cook from this!  She's learning to cook with whole foods!  She's given up pasta and bread and sweet tea!  She's gaining maturity in how she approaches food.  

I could not be more proud of her! <3

And it brings me to tears feeling like I'm helping her get back what I caused her to always do without, her health.  She doesn't blame me.  But it's so amazing to be able to help reverse what's wrong with my child.  She has a long way to go, but she is walking the talk, facing her setbacks, and it's also bringing us a little closer as she learns to "adult" as well.

So happy!

Keto!

Oh my gosh, yeees... bed. :]

Day two of my bone broth fast went much better than yesterday.  Yesterday was... challenging.  I was really hungry all day, and just the thought of continuing with no food except bone broth was so darn depressing... more so as the day went on. I finally broke down and opted for a keto breakfast for dinner about 8:30 pm.  So today I had decided I would do exactly the same.  And knowing that made all the difference.  I lost 2.2 lbs after day 1 on the fast.  And I knew I would weigh less on day 2 because I peeked at the scale halfway through day 1 and I actually weighed less than I did that morning. That never happens on a normal day.  

Anyway, I also had far less brain fog today.  I felt it start to creep in about noon, but I powered through it.  I spent the morning deciding on the ready-made meal I would have on-hand (a meat and side item) and some desserts (fat bombs).  On keto, fat is good.  

During the afternoon, I went to the local farm to get chemical free, free-range eggs (2 dozen because I plan to make some hard boiled to have on salads and just as a snack).  There's also 4 other people in this house that might eat eggs.  But I also plan to eat a fried egg (in coconut oil) with avocado for breakfasts.  I often eat that anyway.  It's just right now I don't have a good recipe for a morning smoothie, keto approved.  I had to give up my sweetened chocolate almond, banana, and frozen fruit smoothies.  

Then this evening, I cooked:
- 2 whole chickens with poultry seasoning I also mixed up.  We had this before and Ashley (who is doing keto with me) loves this recipe
- cauliflower mashed potatoes, with garlic scapes, garlic, bone broth, coconut oil, and tarrow - EVERYONE loved this one, even the non-keto folks in the house.
- cheesecake fat bombs
- peanut butter cup fat bombs

The fat bombs are made from butter, coconut oil, some weird sweetener that has zero whatevers, 100% dark chocolate or cocoa, amish peanut butter (just peanuts) and whatever other ingredients I can't recall at the moment.  We froze them in either mini muffin pans or silicon ice cube trays.  I do NOT like the 100% dark chocolate... but maybe I will grow to enjoy them.  

Spaceman worked on pricing garage sale items for the community garage sale that he's participating in Thu-Sat.  We don't ever get much traffic here.  My street is out of the way, but he tries.  I detest garage sales. I try to stay out of his way and am happy to take stuff to donate instead.  He's much more thrifty than I am.  When he was done with that and tending to the garden a little, he came into the kitchen to help lick bowls and cut the chicken up to put in serving size containers.  Ashley and I each have 3 ready-made meals and more dessert fat bombs than we would want to eat.  I also still have some raw, soaked, & seasoned almonds drying out in the dehydrator.  That was super expensive, organic raw nuts.  I don't think I'll be doing that very often.  Even though I thought I bought plenty.  They don't look like much on the drying tray.

We got nothing done on the bathroom this weekend.  Oh well.  I was a mess yesterday and today I had to do everything I had planned to do yesterday, today, and then today's stuff.  I'm whooped and thankful spaceman came in to help me divvy up the meals into separate containers.  We also saved off the giblets, bones and broth from cooking the chickens.  He says he will make lentils with the broth.  I plant to make my own bone broth with the gizards and bones, no matter how gross that sounds.  I am doing it to heal my leaky gut. I would rather be a vegetarian.

And if anyone knows a keto-friendly "batter" for catfish deep frying... please share.  I forgot to make my catfish meal before I ran out of time and started this diet!

I'm also looking for good salad dressing alternatives... no sugar, keto-friendly oils (olive, avocado or coconut).  Right now I plan to mash an avocado and salt it for a creamy dressing.  I don't know anything else and I'm not really a fan of olive oil, unless something can mask the taste.

That's it for now.  It's bedtime.  :)

a wandering free-write

This place (blogger), kinda feels like home. It's nice to have somewhere I feel I can just be myself as I type.  It's very much appreciated.  New places to write are stressful.  I like it here with you all.

Life feels pretty good lately.  ...for a while now actually.  It's so fucking ordinary and yet so dam sweet too.   Not perfect... never perfect.  But perfectly of the energy and connection that called out for me.  I absolutely do have the love I came here to be with.  We did meet, and we did end up together.  That alone I thank existence for, daily.

Spaceman is in the bathroom caulking the tub/shower surround he just put up.  I helped, but just assisted.  Mostly, I cleaned up as it went along and handed the right tools or a paper towel, whatever was needed.  He did the measurements, the cutting, the gluing, the shopping for supplies.  

The air conditioner is on. I hear it running in the living room, but I've purposefully left the sliding glass back door open.  It just finished a summer-feeling shower and the birds are chirping in refreshment.

I'm drinking my mineral water, the kind I filter and mix up myself.  We use a Big Berkey water filter with the add on fluoride filters.  I add ionic minerals (ReMag & ReMyte) and a little sea salt, for trace minerals, and measure out 64 oz of it into a big jug each night for the next day.  In general, I am getting a lot more water than I used to.  And it has replaced drinking more teas or sugary drinks.  

In this way, my health has been better.

Our garden is da bomb. I'm telling you, I'm really happy with the joint effort we put into it and the solid healthy and sensible reasons we choose to do things the way we do out there.  I love sitting and watching YouTube videos on gardening when I need to learn about a subject.  One or two might be not exactly what I'm looking for - and sometimes I don't even know what I'm looking for before I start - but I usually find my answers... then spaceman and I discuss it and then go for if, if we decide to at all.  

Doing the seedlings with grow lights, that was MY idea though lol.  I'm the one who is always wanting to grow things from seeds.  And they turned out GREAT this year.  Spaceman is raving over the sturdy tomato stalks. lol  

We live such an exciting life, I know. lol (sarcasm)


Spaceman is now over at the kitchen table digging through a big bowl of day old popcorn, looking for the "half crunchy ones" he says.  He's a popcorn freak.  And it bothers me not.  I can't really eat it, but don't care that much for it anyway.

At some point this evening I'm going to have to make a run over to my sister's house to take a shower. (ours is under reconstruction)  I'm supposed to go over to a friends house, planned 3 weeks ago, and a shower is a must.  My friend hasn't texted yet though.  Maybe she won't???  I would rather stay in, but I know that's just because I always prefer to stay home with spaceman.  He's the same way, so it's not really a problem.  But yeah, I find it much harder to be social these days. I'm just so damn happy with this phase of my life.  And damn it, I was social for my whole life, I can delve into this without guilt.  It's pretty sweet anyway. <3

How would you feel if the man you loved showed he loves you more than alcohol?  And I was in love with him like this long before any of that was revealed.  Our getting together has been healing for him in especially that way.  It feels damn amazing to be with someone who walks their talk and is self-motivated to be aligned and to understanding of this world.

It's almost as if there's this key... or maybe it's a bridge, a 1000 bridges, a quadrillion...

When the soul becomes balanced or sensitized enough to what's really going on around them... well, awareness begets awareness.  But it's harder than it talked about.  Because right action must also be in balance in one's life.  Spaceman showed me right action and emotional capacity, with never giving up even when feeling lost (and it did come close).. he showed me love.  He showed me the value in myself.  his struggle was my struggle, but in my own ways.  I feared I would never have the ability to understand why some people did what they do... any people.. no one particular, but everyone.  People.  We do some stupid shit for love sometimes.  Sometimes it really isn't healthy.  

But the stars aligned when we came here, so that we could be together again.  There are so many signs of that... a shared soul purpose... and we mirror one another in an untold myriad of ways... but mostly it's just every day ordinary.  

The wind has kicked up out back.  It's coming in gusts every now and again.  But the birds are still cheep'in and the TV muffled from the other room plays some anime cartoon in another language...

Everything is ordinary here.  I have a home life and the home is alive with sharing.

Misfortune with a Silver Lining

1 am and unable to sleep.  

There are reasons.  One major one actually. 

I have poison ivy! ick and such an annoyance. :(

Bet you're happy I'm typing from the other end of the internet right about now.

I assume I got it fishing two Sunday's ago.  But the first spot didn't show up until the Wednesday after.  Whatever... however long it took to show up, is how long it took.  But I'm telling you, no matter how hot it is, next time I will ensure I wear long pants in the woods!

There is a silver lining to this cloud.  

While walking through the woods we came upon a doe, munching away at foliage.  As we approached she didn't run away.  She stayed there, lifted up her head to get a better look at us, and we stopped about 15 feet from her just because it was so novel.  Nothing about her seemed tense, and eventually she bowed her head and began munching again.  Didn't she know she was only a quarter mile from a trap shooting range?

Anyway we don't hunt deer, just fish.  And right about then I caught movement out the opposite direction, quite a bit further away... a big raccoon was standing on it's hind legs trying to get a better view of us.  When he saw me see him, he took off running, then turned around to check on us again.  I laughed and pointed out the irony that the raccoon was scared but not the deer.  We trudged onward, heading back to our car.

Spaceman has a history with deer.  He used to go to the woods to meditate often and one day he felt a presence near him.  When he opened his eyes a deer was standing beside him, curious.  On another occasion, he was walking near a creek when he heard a high pitched noise coming closer and closer.  It turned out to be a baby deer, complete with its fawn spots, lost or abandoned.  He said it followed him for quite a while and he hand fed him some foliage and eventually they went their separate ways.  I've always admired his up close encounters with deer, and finally we had one together. So cool!

As I sit here not feeling the least bit sleepy, I'm trying to stay positive about my condition.  It's not easy.  Poison itchy anything really does a number on me.  It's one of the only times I get truly OCD, trying to keep clean and limit spreading it.  No matter how hard I try, it spreads across my body without obvious reason.  Hence I usually end up at the doctor asking for a cortisone shot and some prednisone meds.  Benadryl has been my constant companion, which also has made working a bit miserable, feeling so like medicine-head.  But the shot and prednisone, which I got yesterday, must have started having an effect because I forgot to take Benadryl before bedtime and felt wide awake in comparison.  And of course, being covered in long sleeves and long pants under the blankets has overheated me and made me itchy all over again.  (I'm really trying not to spread it to spaceman!)  But I was too late in taking the Benadryl.  Sometimes taking it in the middle of the night just doesn't do it for me.  Tonight seems to be one of those nights.  It's hours later and I'm STILL wide awake.  

So I'm munching something heavy on my tummy, a baked potato, hoping to cause a digestion-induced sleepiness.  It might be working???  If I can't get some decent sleep tonight, medicine head tomorrow will really suck!

I'm so done with this.  It's not the itching that gets to me the most; I've learned to never scratch it. I have that much steel will.  It's the constant worry and excess care I take caring for it.  It's taxing.  I'm ready to be well now, thankyouverymuch.  As it looks now, I will have a scar for a while on my shin, and I'm keeping vigil over an infection trying to break out - for which I refuse antibiotics, except topical.  Topical is okay. Topical is good.

Okay, enough typing.  Off to try sleep one more time tonight.  Wish me luck.  

The Spark of Life

Magnesium, that is.

I had tried it before, for constipation.  For a couple of years in fact, I took large amounts of it regularly.  But those cheap magnesium oxide pills caused chronic edema in my shins.  I had also tried drinking tons of water daily.  But as many "close but not quite" attempts go, I didn't have the right combination.  I was taking the wrong form of magnesium -the least absorbable form- and I didn't regularly combine that with large amounts of water, but instead tried my "drink lots of water" solution on a separate attempt, years later.  

It's funny how close you can be to an actual solution to a pressing problem, and yet not quite get it... and give up.  I've been suffering from chronic constipation for 13 years!

Over the years... I saw doctors, had procedures to investigate things, had blood tests (nothing was ever found as the reason).  I changed my diet, took prescriptions that were later deemed unsafe and taken off the market, did cleanses, did food trials to identify offending foods, cut out some food groups, tried supplements, tried dowsing myself in water daily, cut out more food groups, suffered with laxative cramping all night (losing more sleep), and eventually switched over to enemas for the quick and easy solution.  The problem was... even THAT caused more problems over the long run.  And this time, it was beginning to get VERY serious - blood & heart problems!  Just like the all the other solutions that only addressed symptoms, enemas also caused an unwanted side effect.  The sodium in the them caused a worsening electrolyte imbalance that in turn caused my heart to flutter increasingly over a couple of years.  Spaceman and I secretly had it checked out (and I have the bills to prove it), but nothing was found.  I was given a clean bill of health.  Looking back, it was a blessing they didn't put me on any prescriptions.  It turns out, it was an electrolyte imbalance, lack of magnesium and excess sodium - two of the 4 basic electrolytes every body needs.  And those prescriptions they might have prescribed? ...they exacerbate magnesium deficiency.  

Thinking back to when I was taking lots of magnesium oxide and still not solving that particular electrolyte imbalance, I now know the oxide form can't really help much because it only has a 4% absorption rate.  96% is unabsorbable!  That means for every 250 mg, only 10 mg of magnesium makes it into the system.  And even though I was often taking 1200 mg daily (an amount I was told was safe because of magnesium's fail-safe laxative effect), only 50 mg could be absorbed.  A body simply cannot get enough magnesium from the oxide form due to it's poor absorption rate. That's ridiculous to only absorb 50 out of 1200 mg!.  But back then I didn't know I was magnesium deficient. I didn't know that was the core of my problem.  I was just using it for the laxative effect.  Had I known about the poor absorption rate, I still probably wouldn't have actually cared.  All I wanted was the laxative effect!  It was short sighted.  But you only know what you know, when you finally learn it.  And I have learned a LOT about magnesium lately. 

It took another attempt at changing my diet recently and "cheating" with some Chinese food before I put together the connection between sodium and my heart palpitations.  From there the answer was only a google search away: I ran across a conversation between a guy with the same issue as me who received a reply from someone touting Dr. Carolyn Dean's Magnesium Miracle.

As I sat and listened to an interview with her, I could not believe how many LIFE LONG symptoms of magnesium deficiency I have had and never once assumed they were related.

• SAD (seasonal affective disorder)
• very frequently cold
• low blood pressure
• thinning hair
• subclinical hypothyroidism that no allopathic doctor would treat
• eczema on ankles, knees and elbows... and for a time, eyelids
• brittle bones (I was told as a child by a doctor that a stress fracture in my heel was from my muscles tearing it apart - I was a tomboy)
• calcium deposits on the sides of my feet
• teeth prone to cavities and crumbling even though I have had excellent oral habits for years and years
• edema during pregnancies and again later in life (this time not pregnant)
• unexplained high cholestorol for a period of time
• persistent and annoying eye twitches several times a day
• heart palpitations
• blood clots behind knees and eventually in the corotid artery as picked up in a thermography scan
• and of course... that ever-so-troubling chronic constipation!
• There's more, I'm sure.  I'm going from memory as I don't have my list in front of me.

The thing is, there are absolutely TONS of other conditions I don't have that are also caused by a magnesium deficiency, including many opposite seeming conditions such as high blood pressure, variations of thyroidism, and outright heart disease.  What I've learned is, simply:

Magnesium is the spark of life, responsible for over 700 bodily functions, truly a fundamental electrolyte.  

Magnesium is the gatekeeper of cells (it also relaxes muscles) keeping calcium (a tightener of muscles) from entering cells until a contraction is needed.  Without the magnesium barrier, calcium-based disorders and disease occurs, including vascular calcification (sticky blood, high blood pressure, calcified arteries, involuntary muscle spasms and even eventually heart attacks).  Any electrolyte imbalance, endured long enough, can cause issues in the body, frequently vascular and heart-related.  I was having increasing issues that were blood and heart related.  My electrolytes were out of balance: magnesium (too little), sodium & calcium (too much) and potassium (not sure, probably just about right).

The magnesium-calcium balance is super important.  Our city water is one of the WORST in the area as far as "hard water" goes.  Hard water means calcium build up in house pipes and body as well!  Ever hear of calcified pineal gland?  Yeah, that too.  But if calcium is abundant in city water and dairy that is pushed at us by corporate interests, what about magnesium?

Magnesium USED to be abundant in food.  But - and here is the clincher - Floroide binds with magnesium making it unavailable not just to us, but to ALL LIFE FORMS. And guess what contains flouride?  You'll be surprised (or not):

Besides most city water supplies... it's found in chemical insecticides and fertilizers!  In the past 100 years or so, with the advent of industrial monoculture agriculture and chemical insecticides and fertilizers, fluoride is sprayed on plants AND SOIL alike.  The plants can no longer absorb the mineral magnesium from the soil because the fluoride binds it up!  Now even if you stop using the chemicals the soil's magnesium content is all bound up by fluoride!  How did the magnesium get there to begin with: Ice age glaciers.  They scraped the rocks and broke them down into the minerals our bodies use and need.  So even if you eat a plant-based diet.... even if you eat an organic plant-based diet and avoid fluoride (hard to do but can be reduced), your plant food does not contain nearly as much magnesium as it did 100 years ago.  In this case, one cannot simply eat a well balanced diet and get well.  It's truly a sad situation we find ourselves in these days.

Not only are we not getting enough in our food, the very prescriptions we take to manage many of these magnesium deficient conditions (which doctors will never admit to because they aren't taught nutrition and would rather placate with pills).. many of these prescriptions also contain... you may have guessed it: fluoride!  Check the inserts.

So how to balance the magnesium and calcium in your body?  First, you must ingest more magnesium.  And if you are prone to that laxitive effect or need more magnesium than you can tolerate laxitive-effect-wise... Dr. Dean eventually broke down and hired scientists to make a better magnesium, one that is highly absorbable.  I'm now taking that (approx. $30/mo) and another formula for thyroid support - because I feel I need that, too.  Other than that, I add a pinch of sea salt (the kind I use contains 50+ trace minerals) to my drinking water and I drink 64-80 oz of water each day (half my weight in lbs, in ounces of water).  Please beware: you cannot do this with table salt - it contains NO minerals and is a lab created pure chemical sodium (very bad!). And of course, I stopped the enemas 3-4 weeks ago.  Oh yeah, we also now have a water filter that filters out fluoride - LOVE IT!

It was hard at first (pun intended! haha).  For the first week or so, I did not have a bowel movement at all.  This, even though I was taking 1000+ mg of magnesium oxide daily, in addition to taking Dr. Dean's ReMag.  I was also  drinking coconut water and drinking all my water daily... it just wasn't happening at first.  And that's to be expected when recovering from enema abuse.  But because of Dr. Dean's ReMag, much greater amounts of magnesium were finally being absorbed by my body and my sodium levels were evening out, too.  So the first thing I noticed was the heart palpitations subsiding.  That was week one.  By week two, I was having occasional bowel movements again. Whew!  And now... man! You would not think I EVER had chronic constipation!!!

Let me tell you how good it is!  I go, multiple times a day.  Yeah wonderful lol.  Sorry for the TMI.  Aren't we past that yet anyway? ;) But sometimes I have even been too busy and NOT drank all my water, which also means I didn't take all my minerals since they are mixed into my water.  Still, I have my frequent bowel movements the next day.  And Sunday at the wake I did the unthinkable: I purposefully AND JOYFULLY ate a thick slice of chocolate dessert bread!!!!!  And... I still pooped the next day no problemo!

So...

I'm getting a bit giddy here.  I realize I still have leaky gut, so I better keep this "in check" but I am thinking I will not have to stay away from all grains for the entire rest of my life.  It's so freaking liberating!

Sunday at the grocery, as I walked past the breakfast foods, I found myself staring at the oatmeal selections.  Oh my gawd, if I could only eat simple oatmeal for breakfast again!! :)  So, after reading label after label I settled on a brand that was one ingredient (to limit cross-reactions) and bought it.  It's now sitting in my cabinet waiting for me to eliminate all allergens for a few days - let my face clear up (I ate rice cakes the other day too which break me out due to leaky gut) - and then I will EAT OATMEAL FOR BREAKFAST.  This is amazing to me.  I'm just insanely curious at this point.  Do I only have leaky gut to deal with (skin breakouts or cellular bloating) or will I still induce slower motility by eating grains????

I cannot wait to find out!

Burial and Planting

A week ago today, I had planned to start my tomato and pepper seedlings indoors.  We had gone shopping and picked up a $1.79 seedling tray, some seed-starting potting mix, and vermiculite.  But the day's activities were instead filled with a phone call from my mother about her sister's impending passing and a notice that I should go say my final good-bye.  It was hard, and she did indeed pass the next evening.  

The week turned to funeral and wake preparing activities, including my having to work extra long hours prior to Friday's wake, just so that I could leave work early Friday to attend it.  There is no bereavement for the relation of "aunt" in Ohio.  I knew this without looking it up, because when my grandmother passed several years back, there wasn't even a single day of bereavement for my grandmother!  I had taken a vacation day instead.

So yesterday we laid my aunt to rest beside her beloved, with her mother and the only father she knew close by.  The wake was held at my mother's house and my eldest cousin's mother-in-law handled ALL the food preparation, setup and tear-down.  What an angel!  

I didn't count how many people showed up, but I would venture to say there were upwards of about 40 people milling about my mother's finished basement.  She has seating for almost that many and at times there was nowhere to sit.  It was a lively gathering with many kids playing underfoot.  Mom used to regularly host Christmas Day dinners with this side of the family as I was growing up, and we have easily hosted this many people at once, or more, many times over the years.  But yesterday was different.  Ever the people-watcher, as I looked around the room, it was obvious everyone was genuinely enjoying their family time together.  What a testament to my aunt's legacy! <3  Only one family left early that I noticed, and it was due to a very long drive ahead of them across the country. Everyone else stayed three full hours or more.

There were so many flower arrangements from the funeral, that I was able to take home two packed full of houseplants even though I didn't choose mine until all guests had their choice first.  Mom had about 5 large arrangements of flowers left still!

On a lighter note... after the wake yesterday, I re-potted the houseplants in one arrangement into separate pots.  But I ran out of pots, so when I hit up the big box grocery store (NOT Wally world, ick) later today, I will pick up a few pots for the others.  

I was also able to finally get my seedling tray set up yesterday evening.

I tend to just wing the seedling stuff, but this year I watched some videos and decided to "try better". So I am using this tray system instead of small round pots.  It can be watered from below and has its own little micro environment with the lid.  I'm also researching grow lights.  All I need is something simple, but some of the cheap $30 clip on lights, which is about all I would need for one tray, have bad reviews for the wiring.  Definitely NOT something I want to risk!  So, I'm still researching my options.  I won't need one until they sprout, so I have a little time to decide, but not much.  I'm also learning about mixing fertilizer into the water and when to do that.  There is SOOOO much to learn to be a good gardner!  I'm 7 years into this and though winging it has generally worked for me so far, I'm to the point where I just want to fail less. :)  Thus, I am digging in, trying to improve my techniques.  After all, I'm never NOT going to be gardening for the rest of my days. 

I'll leave this post by sharing a close up picture of a plant that came in the flower arrangement shown in the background of the photo above.  I'm not sure what it is and thus how to care for it yet.  So if you recognize it, please let me know what it is.  The leaf is gigantic and beautiful <3  

Waiting for The Call

Update later on Apr.9:  The call came. :'(

I'm waiting for the kind of call no one likes to receive.  My aunt was given 24 hrs - 7 days left to live.  This news was not sudden.  I went to see her Sunday to say my final good-byes, and now I can't even recall saying those exact words.  I waved hello -with the strongest, most loving smile I could muster- when she finally looked straight at me... or was it through me?  I'm not sure.  Maybe words were pointless anyway.  She didn't look good.  It's time, no doubt.  She will pass soon, very soon. 

This is my mother's sister, from a matriarchal dominated family line.  Not that the men aren't important, but that the women are more prominent.  This is my mother's sister.  Gawd, I cannot imagine losing one of my sisters!

But of course... mom is older.  She has been through dealing with death several times over, having stared it down as it happened.  She was there with my grandmother when she passed several years ago.  My aunt asked for 3 people, I'm told: her other daughter (one was already present), her mother, and her sister.  All three have arrived from out of state and are currently sitting vigil.  

It won't be long.  Soon the call will come.

Facing Reality

I like a big salad, with lots of tiny bits.  The more variety I can get on each fork-sized mouthful, the better.  The more I eat salad, the better I feel.  But I need variety!  

Today's salad is the 2nd half of the mixed baby lettuce tub from yesterday's salad, with pineapple, mushroom, gala apple, almond slivers and a variety of poppy seed dressing.  

It's not all organic, because I am using up food spaceman's mother sent home with us.  But usually, I vote with my fork and either:
A) grow my own organics, or
B) buy organics

Growing my own is better.  Have you ever compared the taste of an organic store bought tomato to the one you grew in your own backyard?  Trust me, there is no comparison!

Right now we have no produce producing.  And with the extended winter this year, my little early spring garden, even while protected with a hoop house, has failed all but the garlic.  I'll have to plant again.

I'm not sure if it was just the extended cold or also the learning curve of growing under a hoop house.  There's always something to learn!  I'm in year 7 of gardening and I'm still failing at things!

That's just the nature of... well, nature. 

But a salad every day for lunch... that's my current M.O.  Breakfast is usually either an chocolate almond fruit smoothie (cherries, blueberries, or strawberries) or eggs and avocado sprinkled with Braggs Herb Sprinkle.  Dinner is something spaceman cooks up, usually from scratch - and lately - vegetarian.

I don't eat horribly.  But what I am learning is that no matter how "great" one tries to eat these days, it will not likely be enough to obtain the minerals your body needs because the soil is tainted.  The soil is deprived of nutrition itself.  

I grow organically, but what if my neighbors spray their lawns?  What can I do about it?  Zilch.

I grow organically, in raised beds (we raised the large garden, too, for the most part last fall).  I even collect rain water to water with, but what can I do about the chemtrails poisoning the rainwater?  Zilch.

Look at it for the mass majority of people:  Fluoride binds to magnesium, making it bio-unavailable.  Weed killers contain fluoride.  Your city water more than likely contains fluoride.  (Your toothpaste probably does, too, for that matter.)  In the case of conventional single crop mass agriculture being sprayed with herbicides and pesticides, year after year, not only does the plant contain the chemicals themselves, the soil has very little magnesium not bound up with fluoride.  So, food grown today has far less nutrition than food your parents or grandparents ate growing up.

It's no longer feasible to tell someone to "just eat healthier" and for them to actually obtain the nutrition their body is desperately needing.

Of course, eating well does help.  It's just not enough.  

As a society, we are in that place where the cycle is so complete with being poisoned on so many fronts that it's truly really difficult to be healthy.  

When we're young our bodies are much more resilient, but our children are also being assaulted on levels we never experienced at their ages.  

It's enough to make a person want to pack up and move OFF GRID somewhere remote.  But they're making that illegal in more and more places, too!

In any case, how many of us are not enslaved to our debt, making that a pipe dream anyway?  And as long as we are too busy working to pay our bills, we can't even find time or risk being arrested if we want to join a protest.  

We are being assaulted on so many fronts.  Why?  Are politicians who make city ordinances to fluoridate water, to outlaw camping on your own land, to fine you for growing food on your front lawn... are these the people we should blame?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  It's never as simple as some like to boil it down to.  

The question remains... why all this oppression in the world?

I have suspicions, but what do you think?

Rampage of Joy

My morning routine is to drink my minerals in 16 oz's of water with a pinch of sea salt, and it's the same as my evening routine.  In between that, I have 2-3 more bottles of water with that sea salt pinch.  

Minerals sure, but why sea salt, too?  More trace minerals.  It's really as simple as that.  Sea salt, unlike chemically manufactured table salt, has 50-70+ trace minerals and that's what I'm after, certainly not the sodium.  Like I said, I recently discovered my body was saturated with sodium to the point of chronic heart palpitations and other disconcerting symptoms.

It turns out, my body was craving recovery and as soon as I stopped the offending relief treatments for my constipation, my sodium levels went down fast.  Within a week, palpitations were fewer and further between.   And in 2 weeks, I wasn't having them at all.  This meant I could safely include the sea salt in my my new minerals routine.  

I'm taking the most highly absorbent form of magnesium on the market, a pico-ionic sized form that readily absorbs before it can cause any loose bowels.  I did that for over a week, mixing it in my water twice daily.  This week, I added a second 9-mineral formula, also pico-ionic in size, and thus highly absorbent, that mainly supports healthy thyroid function.

I am still taking some cheap, meaning non-highly absorbent form, of magnesium to ensure my bowels do move.  The better quality magnesium won't cause that because it's too bio-available to the body, and... I do need my bowels to move.  

But even that has become easier.  This regimen is doing my body wonders.  I am taking less and less of the crappier form of magnesium as my intestines have begun working things through better.  It's truly amazing.  It's still ups and downs by the day sometimes, but I have a good set of practices and medicine (minerals) to restoke the fires of hundreds of bodily functions that have gone dormant through the years from lack of necessary ingredients: minerals.

It's boring stuff to write about.  But it's just amazing to me that I can even write about having such successes.  My intestines are contracting of their own free will! lol  To me, this is the bees knees!  I've been suffering since 2005!  That's 13 years!  I can't remember what it feels like to be healthy.  Even before that I wasn't healthy (makes sense right?).  Before that it was a pendulum that swang in the equal but opposite direction - and a family-wide issue.  Only at some point my body had enough and something SWITCHED into the opposite of issues.  Within the course of 3 weeks, I slowly (pun intended) realized I had a serious problem.  

No doctor has ever been able to tell me what's wrong with me or even provide any solutions.  "It's stress" my gastroenterologist used to tell me.  I would just look at her like, you've got to be kidding me.  *eye roll*  For a while she gave me some prescription to help keep my pipes flowing... later it was pulled off the market for some reason.  

One way or another I have been suffering through the last 13 years just to eliminate the food I must eat to continue living.  And now... now I have real progress along that journey.  Everything I'm doing is working in unison and I feel sooo much better.  

Okay, rampage of joy going offline...  Have a wonderful Easter. <3

The Backstory

Things are so amazing right now.  

Ever since spaceman turned things around, every single day has been bonus after bonus of progress and healing.  And just as I suspected, once we got him on the right track, the two of us would blossom in untold ways.  

At this point, too many (good) things are piling up that I would like to share, but without telling the backstory of this one big thing, the significance of it and everything else now unfolding cannot be realized... not by anyone who doesn't yet know the backstory anyway.  

So here goes:  

Spaceman has AUD (Alcohol Use Disorder).  Denial is a bitch, let me tell you. And so is Vodka!  I have received quite the education in dealing with alcoholism, and yet, every single person and their circumstances are unique.  I don't pretend to understand anyone else's situation, but I can tell our story a bit.

AUD is debilitating.  It does not matter if you have a heart of gold or coal.  And spaceman's heart is a rainbow of goodness.  For that reason, I found that although this quite serious red flag became obvious after about 2 months of living together (because I'm dense and took that long to realize), I found that at every choice-point, I simply COULD NOT send this beautiful soul packing.  My heart was broken, we were crumbling, and yet I could not leave him to his vice to die an inevitably early death. 

Is every detail necessary?  I'm sure you have some idea of it already... the stress, the conversations repeated because he was too drunk to remember from the night before, the hidden bottles, the promises broken, the refusals to admit, the arguments while drunk...  you name it.  We did not escape it, except violence.  Spaceman is a kind soul, and a happy drunk (or rather, was) and has never raised a hand to me.  He didn't have to.  Threatening to walk out a few times was traumatizing enough to me.  Like many with AUD, drinking was an escape from his worries, a means to forget, to stop the pain from consuming him. 

He lost his two children to his ex-wife's personal vendetta against him.  And, he lost his best friend, his brother, to a sudden heart attack in the room next to his one night.  That is enough to tell you of his pain for now.  I am not elaborating, because it is highly personal, and his story, more than ours.  I will focus on ours. But please know, finding someone you love dearly dead one morning is extremely traumatizing.  And losing contact with children you have only ever wanted to love and nourish is soul-shattering, especially when they reach of-age and do not come seeking you out and have not been found either.

So back to our story:

What I find so endearing about his personal struggle through this has been his sheer determination despite all the setbacks he endured.  Having a genetic predisposition from both sides of his family made it even tougher.  This has been a long drawn out process, pulling him out of that tailspin, and there are a few factors that were god-sends, one of which I wish I could tell the world about:  TSM (The Sinclair Method), a pharmacological extinction method developed by Dr. Sinclair using Naltrexone.

Naltrexone or "Nal" for short is a pill that blocks opioid receptors in the brain, the same receptors that get stimulated when drinking.  Only, and here comes that part that seems unbelievable until you understand it better, one MUST DRINK while using Naltrexone in order for it to work its seeming magic over time.  

Naltrexone + Drinking = Cure

We eventually modified it for us to be: 

Naltrexone + Drinking + Transparency = Cure

If one is not transparent with their significant other, troubles brew.  But of course this method can be used even without any help from a significant other, so technically Nal + Drinking = Cure is still the actual cure.  

The transparency part came into play for us because that bitch, vodka, kept sinking her hooks into him time and time again.  He needed to begin the process of being open about the things he's been hiding for so long, and that was not an easy thing to do at first.. not for a long time in fact.  Sneakiness in drinking is simply part of the core of AUD.  It's not personal, though it sure feels personal and I had to learn to deal constructively with deceit from my significant other.  It helped to realize that this man was never deceitful in any other subject or manner, other than with his drinking.  

It sounds severe, doesn't it?  It sounds like a deal breaker, I know.  Believe me, it almost broke us, time and time again.

But on Feb. 8th, 2018, the birthday of his deceased brother, spaceman made a decision, a strong-backed decision to drop vodka from his life entirely.  It was then that the TSM method kicked into its highest gear yet and we quickly climbed out of the vicious cycle that is AUD addiction.  Don't get me wrong, it's not that the Nal wasn't working before that point.  Spaceman swears that he could never have gotten to the point where he felt strong enough to kick the hard liquor to the curb without it.  It's just that I suspect he needed a stronger dose to achieve that while still drinking vodka.  It's just one of those steps in the TSM process... while you are doing your Nal + Drinking method of weaning off alcohol, you eventually experience milestones such as that.  He still drinks beer or wine on Naltrexone sometimes.  But he ALWAYS has his Nal pill at least an hour before drinking.  This shrinks the neural pathways that were once used reinforce addiction, and over time his cravings have shrunk, bit by awesome bit.

Having said all that... I cannot express to you how significantly different "this time" truly feels.  Few people have even known of his AUD outside of my little family's walls.  One person, my older sister figured it out and I swore her to silence, insisting it's our story to tell, when and IF we choose to tell it.  She has complied and been super supportive of our process.  His family also knows.  It came down to it at one point.  One of my readers here, also knew, as I reached out for desperate help during one of the stronger stress points in our journey. A couple of my best friends knew, though that wasn't particularly helpful. One may also be in her own AUD struggle and the other has a boyfriend who is also AUD stricken.  And I... my presence faded from everyone's lives while all this raged around me.  I recoiled inward just to manage my own situation.

So that is it.  That is the big ordeal of which I have been writing circles around for so long.  And now that we have regrown our trust, regrown his faith in himself, he has begun the process of dealing with emotional triggers on-the-level, without numbing them.  And now the world is laying bare all kinds of fruits from our labor.  I can't wait to tell you about those as well! <3

Healing Atop Healing!

Miracles can and do happen, and I believe I am in the midst of a banger of one right now.

Most people who know me, know I live with chronic constipation.  This came on suddenly back in 2005, at the same time serious health problems came on suddenly for spaceman... immediately after our trip to Sedona together.  While the reasons for that may be somewhat more in line with some kind of "spiritual setup" - due to unfold much later for the two of us, it may turn out to be related in a coincidental medical cause kind of way that, to be honest, we have not yet identified.

Though this miracle I've stumbled upon has been being called forth from my conscious calling out for it ever since then, it wasn't until this week when things got dangerously out of control that I became rooted in determination not just to treat symptoms any longer, but to get to the very root if it all.  

I didn't expect answers to come so quick!

Now is the time, I suppose, and I am not wasting this new information.  I'm jumping in full steam ahead, because it feels that succinct.

Synchronicities have been sparking off right and left this week as well, futher impressing upon me that I am on the right trail.

Here's the short of it:  

I discovered my answers through escalating symptoms.  All symptoms, even seemingly unrelated symptoms suddenly connect in an unexpected way and I have a health solution laying before me that excites me to no end!

First off, I am toxic.  Not just because I'm full of shit quite literally, but because the method I have been using for years to help alleviate it (enemas) has finally caught up with me and been causing serious cardiovascular distress.  But I didn't know this yet.  Regardless, it is now clear, I am on toxic overload of sodium.  So that must be dealt with first.  I discovered the sodium connection from two meals I ate this week that had more sodium than usual, and the connection between my cardiovascular issues and sodium became self evident.  But wait... I hadn't been eating too much salt in general, so how did I become toxic?  I plugged it into the search box and began reading.

It was then that I discovered a forum post of someone having similar problems to whom my miracle answer was recommended.  The guy said he felt results start kicking in within the week.  Still skeptical of course, I searched to reach about that protocol and began skimming about the "magnesium miracle".  Still not impressed yet, I pulled up a (long) video interview and set it to play while I continued my research.  

At some point the connection popped into my head.  Tossing my laptop aside, I jumped up and ran to the bathroom to read the label on my box of enemas... sure enough, it's salt water!!  I immediately knew I had to quit those cold turkey and also felt grateful that I had listened to my body's intuition so far this week and really clamped down on constipation-offending foods again.  I even gave up meat again, simply for digestive tract transit time concerns.  (Plus, I want to do it for spiritual reasons.)  So making the decision to axe my one "go to" solution for my constipation didn't feel overwhelming to me because I was already starting to feel some relief from the constipation, having been eating tons of veggies this week, cooked and raw.  I've always known that is super helpful to me, so it was the first thing I changed... again, because before now I never felt I could stick with it.  

Back to the bed, sitting by spaceman who is doing his own thing on his own laptop, we both were growing increasingly fascinated with what this lady doctor was explaining about chronic magnesium deficiencies.

I have been telling spaceman all week, who has been trying his level best to accommodate any and all healing changes I want to make, that I'm adamant that I am not seeking solace for symptoms. I AM SEEKING the ROOT CAUSE.  And let me tell you, I have been distraught this week over the cardiovascular complications and their boding in my life.  My mantra has been root cause, Root Cause, ROOT CAUSE!!!  I've been feeling a level of determination bordering on angry insanity, but it's also been fueling my requests for help from my spirit guides with a certain degree of expectation that they can deliver this information to me one way or another!  I have been determined to will* the manifestation of this answer one way or another, though I knew not how!  

And BAM!

This shit has landed in my lap and blown me away!  

Magnesium deficiency, why that?  Well, I plan to re-listen to that video and write down all the ways in which I personally have had life-long symptoms of this and how it may help with so many issues I have, that I thought were unrelated, including my chronic constipation.  Seriously, I didn't know whether to laugh or cry or both!

I feel stoked!  I'm going to BEAT this condition and RESTORE health like I've never known it before!  And I'm going to take as many people with me as I can. <3  Staring with... my daughter.  

And since this post is long enough, I think I will get out my carrots, apples & beats and start making fresh juice for the week while I re-listen to that video, making notes along the way.

What a good week!

*"Will-ing" healing... that's another synchronicity!  I had an amazing dream over spaceman's recent healing which involved my willing it as so.  So many overlapping synchronicities lately!