The Next Step

This week I get to start the next step in my life.  I have spent the last year staying with my Mom in an effort to get back on my feet after a rather crazy a ridiculous divorce that left me nothing.  It's been a good year to re-connect with my Mom but apparently I have been on my own too long and I am just not good at being a room mate.  That and I just don't like living in a city setting~too many years living in the woods.

This week I am moving up into the mountains!  I will be living at about 10,000 feet and I can honestly say I'm super excited to be getting out of the city.  Although I will be 45 minutes from work and it can be an interesting drive down from the mountain on snowing days (like today! Seriously, it's the middle of May and we're getting snow!) the freedom of being able to walk outside and be in the woods will be a relief.  Shopping is fairly close by and there is a little yoga studio up there.  These are things that will make me happy.

The dogs will have a bit more freedom than they have here and I will not have to worry about making too much noise when I have to be at work at 5:15 in the morning.  I will be able to create my own meals and not worry about whether or not someone else will like it.  Hell, if I want to eat nothing but salads and cottage cheese for days on end I can!

I will be posting pictures of my new digs once I get all set up.  I am so excited!

Better Heallth

So many people will ask me, “I don’t feel good.  You know stuff about staying healthy….what would you suggest?”.  I will ask them their symptoms and make a recommendation on what I have found to work for a particular set of symptoms.  Usually if they ask early into the illness the recommendation will be either baking soda added to water to balance their ph (when you are sick you are too acidic) or apple cider vinegar and the response is always the same, “That would taste so awful!  I will take….. (some random, over the counter drug)”.

I say OK and leave it at that.  Now, go to your medicine cabinet and pull out some random, over the counter medicine for colds.  Now, read those ingredients.  How many of those can you pronounce?  How many of them do you even know anything about?  Next, look at the possible side effects and the drug interactions.  Not pretty stuff to be found in those sections!  And you are willing to put these unknown chemicals into your body in an effort to feel better.  How effective are these products….really?  In my experience, not that effective.  The cold or the flu bug will run it’s course and I would usually end up missing a day or two from life.

Now, look at what happens when you take something like apple cider vinegar or baking soda and use it religiously for a few days.  During those days you may feel a bit cloudy and not at the top of your game but you aren’t really missing out on life.  After you have used these more natural ingredients to heal your body and you have been smart by getting the extra needed rest and eating good, healthy food you realize that your illness is gone, your body has healed and you feel GREAT!  And the biggest bonus to this type of health and healing…..YOU HAVEN’T DAMAGED YOUR LIVER!!!

That’s the best news ever!  Healthy body, healthy mind and a healthy liver!

Think twice about what you put in your body so that your body will be there for you during the long haul….you know, that thing we call life!

Paying It Forward

On Monday I made a last minute decision and went camping~the first camping trip of the season.  The dogs and I ended up here, a little reservoir in Pueblo, CO.  As camping trips go it was uneventful, quiet with a meteor shower thrown in for good measure.

We got to watch shooting stars while the baby coyotes called for their parents while enjoying burgers (yes, I cooked small burgers for the dogs) that had been cooked over a camp fire and some steamed green beans and an ice cold beer. We sat together watching the fire burn down and relaxed enjoying the kind of quiet you can only find in far off places away from cities, cars and trucks.  The only mechanical, man made thing we heard was an occasional, far off train whistle and the clacking of the train wheels on the track.

Seriously, does life get any better than this?  I love the feeling of sleeping on the ground with my dogs snuggled in~one curled up at the bottom of the sleeping bag keeping my feet warm and the other pushing up against my back with his head next to mine on the pillow (yeah, he's a big dog that stands taller than me when standing on his hind legs).

It was a nice break from real life as I've come to know over this past year.

On my way home I noticed a young couple walking down the side of the road which is pretty unusual for the road and the area but the thing that really caught my eye was the dog they had with them.  He was your average looking dog but he was so painfully thin.  I remember when I found my big dog and how thin he was then and I knew I had to turn around.  I gave them the rest of the dog food I had with me from camping....maybe a couple of bowls worth and the rest of the money I had in my wallet along with a business card.  I told this young couple that if they ever needed anything, a ride, a meal or a bag of food for the dog and something for themselves to call me.  I don't know why I felt compelled to do this but I just felt it was what I needed to do for them.

Now, if any of you actually read this you know that I really have nothing.  I have lost my house, left my kids and my friends in Northern Wisconsin as well as everything I own.  I don't dwell on this fact very often but for me to have done this says a lot about how this young couple and their dog affected me.  It made me realize that without the help and support of my family and friends I would not have been able to take care of my 2 dogs or myself.  It also made me remember to never take important people in your life for granted and that we should always pay it forward.

No Poo Hair

I wanted to share with you a little post that I was asked to create regarding my chemical free hair journey. I'm not sure whether the post will be used by Morrocco Method but I found it interesting how this chemical free hair journey has evolved.  I am totally loving this experience!

My hair journey with Morrocco Method is slightly different from most due to my having gone “poo free” a couple of years prior to starting to use the Morrocco Method products. I have never had great hair but after going “poo free” my hair became a bit more curly, and easier to deal with but.  Years of swimming competitively, growing up in California swimming in the ocean and heavily chlorinated pools and generally not taking very good care of my hair had made it more straw then a soft, smooth, shiny crowning glory.  My hair was just something that I had to keep clean and long enough to put up in a pony tail.

My “poo free” lifestyle worked well enough while I lived in Northern Wisconsin as I was able to keep it in a bun or tucked into a hat when I was going to spend a lot of time out in the winter elements or wrapped in a scarf when I was hiking or camping but I found after I had moved to a high mountain desert that I needed something more than what I was able to create for myself.  Even though I was creating shampoos and conditioners that were home made and natural my hair went from curly to frizzy and was getting nothing but more frizzy.

I did some research and found the Morrocco Method.  Around the same time that I had found MM I read a blog post by a woman I respect from the Paleo Diet community about the changes she had noticed after using the shampoos and conditioners.  That sealed it for me….I ordered my trial packs of shampoos and conditioners!

Now, since I had been “poo free” for so long I didn’t have the oily, greasy stage to deal with and since my hair was already dry, frizzy and totally unmanageable but completely chemical free I noticed a difference right away.  After the third shampoo I was noticing more curly and less frizzy but the biggest difference happened when I had taken the Zen Detox to the “caves” in Idaho Springs, CO.  The “caves” are man made vapor caves with hot springs pools.  The air in the caves is extremely hot, extremely humid and loaded with a number of different minerals from the hot spring water used in the pools that are beneficial for your skin and your hair.  Add this environment with the Zen Detox and 2 hours of meditation, yoga twists and relaxation and you have an additional pump to the detox effects of the Zen Detox.  Once my hair dried I was amazed at the change in texture and softness of my hair (my hair has never been truly soft).

Since I have started using the Morrocco Method I have found that I can go 3-4 days (I used to wash at least once daily) between washing although when I take a shower I will rinse my hair and give my scalp a little massage.  I have also noticed that I have a ton of re-growth coming in at my temples.  This is hair that I had lost during my childbearing years and menopause. 

My hair is thicker, stronger and starting to curl again!  I am finding that there is more lift at the roots and when I finger comb my hair after washing there are no “snaps” of hair breaking. I use the Lunar hair cutting chart and rotate my shampoos regularly.  I absolutely love these products! 

Now I just need to know the best time to shave my head for optimum re-growth~a friend will be losing her hair due to chemo and radiation and I am shaving my head in solidarity and respect for her.  Yes, I will be giving her a travel pack of shampoos and conditioners for when her hair starts to grow back!

Anthony, when will be the best time for both of us to shave our heads?

I hope you enjoyed this post as much as I have enjoyed achieving healthy hair.

I Hate Being Sick!

I have spent the past few days not feeling very well. I did all my tricks to get rid of whatever the "bug" was and managed to keep it from really taking me out but I still did not feel 100%.  I went to the caves in Idaho Springs in an effort to burn it out, slept with lavender or Breathe, taken my homeopathic flu remedy and still I just couldn't kill it!  Well, a little extra rest, a long walk with the dogs and adding the electric blanket seems to have taken care of it.....FINALLY!

Now I have the energy to build a couple of event pages for some friends that want to have a Nerium party but they live in the Midwest and I am going to play with some new essential oils and do some reading about ways I can use them to help my big dog become more relaxed. 

I am realizing that I have a bunch of things on my plate that are all wonderful products.  I have learned tons from using and being involved with these companies and their products and all of them have blostered my intention to live a cleaner, less chemical filled life.

I will be working on posting about each of these companies over the next week so that you can see what it is that I find to be so wonderful.

Have a great day!

Dancing Fat Ladies

Now don't take that the wrong way....they are just 2 statues on the corner of one of the main streets in Fort Collins.  I love their expressions and they just make me smile.

I spent the day in Fort Collins with my Mom today.  She has never been there so I decided that we would take the day and paddle around the down town area.  It is a bit like Pearl Street in Boulder but I happen to like it a bit more than Pearl Street.  Funky little stores, great people and tons of breweries (I love micro brews!).

Our first stop was the rock shop....Mom loves rocks!  That took almost an hour mainly because I had to touch just about every rock in the place and I absolutely love their granite plate ware room.  The dishes come in different colors of granite and it amazes me.  The jewelry there is also fabulous and the selection of crystals is huge.  After the rock shop we paddle around the rest of the square loving the old buildings, looking at quaint, one of a kind shops and talking. I love that I am able to spend this kind of time with my Mom just enjoying each other's company and wasting the day together.  I am truly blessed!

We finally decided that we were hungry so we headed over to the Fort Collins Brewery and ate all things NOT Paleo.  The food was outstanding and well worth the belly ache I have right now.

Tomorrow I'm back to eating right because this is not comfortable.

Catchup

I've been gone for a bit....seems to be my MO.  Time for me to change that and be more consistent.  So it's now time to catch up with anyone who wants to follow this strange journey I'm on. 

So, if you've read any of the things I've posted previously you know that my life has been a bit weird but certainly not unusual.  Bad divorce, my youngest moved out after we discovered she was Type 1 diabetic, my oldest didn't talk to me, the other 2 in between still do, I lost everything in the bad divorce~including my self esteem.  I decided years ago to go "poo free", I buy very few cosmetics and use only natural cleansers for me and my house and I sell the few cosmetics I do use because I can get behind the companies and the products.

During the time that I have been absent I spent a few months travelling this country and camping with my dogs.  We went everywhere!  It was a glorious few months and I really love that way of being.  One day while bashing around in southern New Mexico my Mom called and asked me to come back to her house as she needed to put her cat down and she wanted the dogs for the type of unconditional love only an animal can give.  Well, I have become firmly entrenched in Boulder, CO.  Not my first place to live but for now it will work. 

One day at work a co-worker asked me a question regarding alternative health in front of another co-worker.  The second co-worker said, "She knows shit.  You need to listen to what she tells you."  I didn't think much about the statement and went on to answer the question.  The next day my sister (she lives here too) told me over coffee, "You know so much stuff about all kinds of things and you really need to think about charging people for your knowledge."  Both of the statements add up to the same thing.....I know all kinds of shit about living a cleaner, healthier, chemical free life. 

So that's what I'm going to write about for the next little while. If you have questions, just ask.  Maybe I can help or maybe I can help you find a different way of getting healthy.