Here’s to One Year Down and New Beginnings

I find it only fitting that I should get the urge (finally) to blog on this, the anniversary of when I first signed on with WordPress.

I remember Schofie had been nagging lovingly encouraging me to start this up. The first year has had its ups and downs, for sure. All you bloggers out there know what I mean when say I had moments of elation at both my first “like” and first “comment” on an article. It’s an ego boost. A pat on the back. A “hey-I-might-not-suck-after-all” moment.  And then of course the weeks/months where I simply had nothing to write, and felt as guilty as Fido in a dog-shaming meme.

Those are all fun moments and lessons learned though, aren’t they?

I’ll leave you with that tid-bit because I don’t want to get too serious today. After all, I still have my unannounced news to, well, announce!

Drum roll please….

Meet our beautiful baby girl!

That’s right folks. I have found my way into the club that is “Mommy-blogging”, sleepless nights, and inexplicable, irrational, unconditional love. She’s not due to arrive until March 9th, but I’m halfway there, and cannot wait to hold her in my arms! In the meantime, I have started the frenzy of trying to decide which car seat to purchase, how many cloth diapers I will need (yes, that IS what we have chosen to do, much to the chagrin of many a “non-granola” mom), and something called nipple-butter. (Ew… what have I gotten myself into…?!)

So, will this blog turn into the inevitable Mommy Blog?

I have asked myself this (with admitted dread) these last few months simply because I suppose I always thought Mom Blogs were lame. They were for “those women” whose lives consisted of loneliness and canned jam. I had visions of colic and poop and dirty dishes piling up, all hidden behind a cute blog name of “lifewithminnyme.com” or some crap like that. The nightmare and stereotypes continued for weeks, until I realized,

I want that.

I want to be the kind of mom who lets the dishes stack up because I know that my newborn girl needs to be fed instead. I want to be the mom who isn’t afraid to blog about the explosive diaper occasionally, because, ya know, sometimes life is poopy. I want to be the mom who knows how to laugh at life’s mess and can come away with some semblance of sanity all because I adore my children, and the life my husband and I have created.

So will this blog end up a Mommy Blog this next year? I don’t know. But I know this: I’m now a Mommy. And I can’t wait to see what story I’ll get to tell.

Rhed

A Brief Hiatus, and What I Want to Tell You, But Can’t.

To you, my readers, I return.

I haven’t taken this break unintentionally.

Far from it, in fact.

I have been incredibly busy performing as Adriana in Comedy of Errors for all of July, but that’s not what has been keeping me away. Busyness is (generally) an excuse. I find time for what I deem important.
Incense and Sounds is important, incredibly important to me, because I view it as an outpouring of a lifestyle. My lifestyle. A place where free spirits reign.

But I digress. The reason I have been away is because…

I have a secret.

(commence oooing and ahhhhing)

And just like my doppelgänger Lily, from How I Met Your Mother, it is very hard for me to keep a secret. Like ever. Like I wanna type everything out right now and my hand is about to gahhhhhhhh a;lksdif&*$(ksdjf;lak@#(*&c;elre!!!

You see my point? (Also, yes, I did use the word “doppelgänger”.)

There will be a time when I will divulge said “secret”, yet now is not that time. Which is like bringing a kid into a toy store and saying, “You can look, but don’t touch.”

Anticipation is half the fun though, right? 😉

XOXO,

Rhed

Happy Anniversary to ME!

Today I have been married to my best friend for TWO YEARS!

So to commemorate the happy day, here is a glimpse into Rhed and Schofie’s happiest day of their lives:

And just because it makes me happy, here’s a photo I took of some incense we purchased at Earthbound Trading Comp. (happiest place in the world!) while we were celebrating this weekend.

Peace and much Love!

Rhed

Can I Give More?

“Ask yourself: ‘Can I give more?’. The answer is usually: ‘Yes’.”

 -Paul Tergat, Kenyan Professional Marathon Runner

I think I’ve fallen in love. My Jump Off the Ladder challenge of running at least 20 minutes a day, 3 days a week was hard the first week, but this week I feel amazing. Yesterday, my day was jam-packed full of work, and then I had rehearsal for a play I am in: Comedy of Errors (by Shakespeare, of course!). So early on yesterday, I knew that I wouldn’t really want to go running after all the festivities, especially with all the rain I’ve been getting this last week. Thankfully, my challenge pushed me forward, and I wrote a reminder on my wrist that I looked at throughout the day: No Excuses.

I asked Schofie to go running with me and soon we were off. I started off jogging and said, “I feel like my body could do this forever!” Soon I was eating my words. I got about three “side-aches” throughout the run, but I ran farther than I ever have before! Unfortunately I didn’t track it with my phone, but we think he and I ran about double the distance of what I ran last week, and thanks to a new neighborhood route, it wasn’t boring at all. I didn’t bring any music with, but Schofie was an excellent coach. Towards the final home stretch, he reminded me,

“Right now your heart rate is through the roof, and you are burning lots of calories, but you’re hitting that place where you feel you can’t quite go on. If you push past that point, that’s where you’re really going to see a difference!”

I drink your mowed lawn grass clippings.

Ok, not really. Although I’ve tried some teas that taste like it.

On my year-long road to health, I learned to fall in love with the benefits of tea. I spent about two weeks detoxing from an average of five cups of disgusting “work-coffee” a day. Five cups. Seriously? Of ground-ridden, cheap, nasty coffee? Why?!

It was free.

It was free and kept me going. What a terrible reason to drink something. Now, I’m not going to get into the coffee vs tea debate, (Really, can’t we all just be friends?) however, when I decided to invest in some Jasmine Green Tea from Earthfare I found that I loved tea. There are so many different flavors and it can be delicious served hot and cold. I also found out there were too many benefits I just couldn’t pass up. (Special thanks to these guys for the info)

• Tea keeps you hydrated

• Packed full of antioxidants

• Can greatly aid weight-loss

• Improved bone mineral density and strength

• Green tea’s antioxidants may help stop the growth of cancer!

Not to mention it can come in really adorable teacups.

CAUTION: Do not Google “cute teacup”. It will result in millions of Teacup Yorkies, and death-by-happiness.

My “Jump Off the Ladder” Challenge, and a POLL!

A few of you may know that I am working on my

Jump Off the Ladder challenge.

I have decided that for the month of June I will challenge myself to go running for at least 20 minutes a day, three days a week. A challenge which, so far, is going alright. The greatest obstacle so far has been the weather. Naturally, since I decide I want to do a challenge that requires me to be outdoors, (I don’t have a gym membership) Murphy’s Law kicks in and it pours rain all week.  However, since I don’t like to dwell on failure, only lessons, I am deciding to see the positive in this.

This weekend, Schofie and I made HUGE headway in the “get rid of your crap” department. For me, living off of nothing but the land in a tree house or Hobbit Hole would be amazing. For him, the idea is fun, but unrealistic. He doesn’t quite understand why I need to seasonally (ok, sometimes monthly) do a massive purge and donate a ton of things. It’s cleansing to me, and with less stuff I find it a more peaceful atmosphere. I would love to jump on board the ‘minimalist’ train. For him, it’s stressful, and an emotional experience. There are memories associated with each item, and after all, we may use it in the future.

After many a discussion and frustrated tears, Schofie decided that since it made his wife happy and healthy, she could get rid of whatever she wanted. (Excluding things explicitly his i.e. clothing)

Seriously, how did I get a guy like that?! 🙂

So I went to town in our kitchen, and am throwing a massive garage sale. I’m not anywhere close to finished with my purge, but here is a start:

Seriously, who needs all this stuff?

So needless to say, I sort of have two challenges this month. I am so excited to see where this’ll take me! Also…

I’m working on a project and need your help!

Please fill out the questionnaire below. If you think of any answers not listed, let me know!

Life Truth

 

Speaking aloud what is in your heart can be a two-edged sword, but it is always best to be honest with yourself. Often truth can be hard to hear. Often it’s best to wait for the right moment and carefully choose your words, but it is far better to be honest and open, then to repress an earnest need.

The American Diet: A Vegetarian’s Take – Part One

We are a product of the environment in which we are raised.

Whether or not you agree with this viewpoint, (I’m still not sure where I stand on “Nature vs. Nurture”.) I think it applies to the typical American diet. We are a few generations in from the Depression Era, and are the products of those that learned to SAVE EVERYTHING. In the Depression Era, if you were eating a meal preserved in a can, you were thankful. You had a loaf of bread and coffee? You were a king. What did  the children of this time learn? To save every scrap, that “meat and potato’s” was the dream. Over the generations, we’ve been taught that our bellies can never be too full, and that hoarding our food isn’t necessarily bad. (Unless you wind up on the show Hoarders of course.)

When I traveled back to Minnesota, I was reminded of how differently Schofie and I live from the generation before us. Now, I want you to know that I don’t write this with a self-righteous, judgmental spirit, because I’m certainly not perfect and have a lot of growth to do, but there were some distinct changes that I couldn’t help but notice: miscellaneous trinkets, photos, bins stuffed with toys for the grandkids; statements of lives filled with children.

Then came the food. Throughout the week there were caramel rolls, burgers, whole milk, casseroles, ice cream… the list goes on. To be fair, our family may have splurged on some things because Schofie and I were there. However, the change from my ritual of mostly raw eating throughout the day was brought to halt.

I realized just how deep-seeded my sense of self – my thought process – revolves around food. The thought of eating a cheesy casserole? And seeing mayonnaise on the counter? Above all, not knowing how the food was cooked was throwing me into a panic attack. I grew overwhelmed, claustrophobic, and was starting to sweat.

I have worked so hard to lose the accumulated 52 lbs. of fat off my body, that high-fat foods I once found so delicious are now taboo to me. It was so frustrating because I knew that these foods were being served out of love and caring for us, yet I was in conflict with myself. Do I eat this out of politeness, so long as they don’t have meat? Or do I politely say, “No, thank you.”? I know that on a rare, special occasion, eating Monkey Bread wont kill me, but my mind was telling me it would. I had to get out of the house.

We decided to go grocery shopping and get some soy milk, fresh spinach, apples, oranges, carrots – beautiful, vibrant, stereotypically Rhed foods, and eventually I calmed down. I was brought back to my comfort zone, and oh what a truly wonderful place that was! Yet I pondered why this had upset me so. After all, this was just food. I was making a huge deal in my mind out of something very small in the grand scheme of things. Yes, health and wellness are incredibly important and something I love to talk about and dwell on… but does that give me the right to be a snob about my lifestyle?

People do not generally switch their lifestyles overnight because of statistics, they look at examples. If I am humble about the way I present the fact that I believe in a vegetarian/vegan lifestyle, and do not judge others because I believe them to be less healthy, they will be curious on their own.

And they were.

• My father-in-law very sweetly went and bought me some frozen vegetarian dinners. (I’d never tried those before.) He doesn’t understand why I eat the way I do, but he was trying to be sensitive to it, and I greatly appreciated the effort.
• For my mothers birthday she asked me to make her some vegetarian pizza, which turned out to be a huge hit, and my meat-eating father chuckled, “This is really good!”.
• My brother-in-law tried a slice of Gourmet Vegetarian pizza from Papa Murphy’s and said, “If Vegetarian’s eat like this all the time, you might just convince me to stop eating meat…”
• My sister-in-law sat me down with the family and said, “So, explain to me how you eat. Your lifestyle. You look great!”

Wow! How humbled and grateful I was! By relaxing in my approach to food for a week, and explaining what I was making for them was a treat, I was able to have the chance to explain the wonders of raw food and people were interested of their own accord. So, thank you family, for a lesson learned, and for being open to new ideas.

For I too was once in your position.

Stay Tuned for Part 2!

“VACATION:Ten Tips for Staying True to Health”

Conviction.

I started doing some asanas this evening, and got a big smile on my face.

I felt free again.

I felt peaceful.

I felt open and ready to embrace life and love.

Then my husband (we’ll just call him Schofie from now on) smirked at me.

“I knew you needed this.” He grinned.

“What do you mean?”

“You have been…”, he cautiously searched for a delicate way to phrase it, “You have been a little irritable lately, and I noticed that you haven’t been doing your yoga as often…I just knew that you really needed to do it.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“Because it’s not my job to tell you. It’s my job to love you… Also that would’ve been your sanity and my life on the line.”

I love Schofie. He knows me better than myself. He know’s when I need to be told, “Baby, I think you should work out…” and when to keep his mouth shut.  But now I know. I know just how much doing consistent yoga affects my life and my loved ones. I could feel that I’ve lost some flexibility in both my muscles, and my mind. So here I sit, showered and clean, and convicted. I have been focused more on the nutrition side of things, and less on the fitness, and Lord knows they go hand-in-hand.

Thanks to my best friend though, I’ve been reminded of finding a balance.

I have found my breath.

Live Raw.

I don’t know if you’re eating your fruits and veggies only when you’re forced to.

I don’t know if you only eat them when you’re trying to drop a few pounds.

Or maybe you’re like me and working towards 100% Raw…

Wherever you are in your journey, just take a moment to look at how exquisite health is: