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Mastitis (breast infections caused by plugged milk ducts) can come on very quickly and completely knock you off your feet. Usually there is an intense pain in the infected area of the breast, followed by fever, chills, aches and pains. It usually lasts for about 1-3 days and then eases up.
It is the biggest, surest sign (for me anyways, everytime I get it) that I am TOO stressed, doing TOO much, and not taking care of myself. It is my body’s way of getting me to lie down and REST.
So here’s what I do when I get mastitis:
1. 5 Phytolacca Decandra every few hours (homeopathic remedy that you hold under the tongue until it dissolves)
2. Lots of Vit. C and echinacea
3. Lots of an infection fighting herb such as Golden Seal, Oregon Grape, Silver Shield (colloidal silver), or oregano oil
4. Take lots and lots of hot baths.
5. Massage really hard (it hurts like hell, but you have to do it) the blocked milk duct, which is the cause of the infection. I usually do it in the shower or bath.
6. Keep nursing, as often as I can, to get the milk ducts flowing and unblocked.
7. Ask my husband to take the day (or days) off to watch the kids so I can sleep, rest, watch TV, movies, etc.
8. Raw cabbage leaf, tucked in the bra and changed when warm and/or wilting and grating raw potato and placing on the infected area as a poultice were two other treatments recommended to me by my midwives. I’ve actually never tried these, but hear that they are very helpful. They help draw out the heat and the infection.
I’ve had mastitis A LOT and I’ve never needed antibiotics by following the above treatment. But if by some chance you do take antibiotics, makes sure you follow it with a HEAVY treatment of probiotics (acidophilus, bifidophilus) to replenish your body with the healthy bacteria that the antibiotics all kill off. Otherwise you are sure to get a yeast infection.
I painted this one a few weeks after Fiona was born and Chris was getting ready to go back to work, after taking a month off to help out with the other two kids at home. I never quite got this painting to the level that I wanted it to be. I thought about starting it over again, but of course that might never happen. And I’m actively trying to let go of my perfectionism issues. So it seemed about the right time to post it now.
I had so much fear about doing it all on my own – taking care of three kids all day long and all night long by myself. Somehow I made it through.
Now let’s rewind to about a month and a half ago. Chris got sick. Checked into the hospital. Shortly after that he had his appendix removed and was in recovery for three or four weeks. And so I was single parenting for a lot of that time. And boy did my body ever scream at me: FIND SOME BALANCE ALREADY!
I suspect this is a life-long endeavor, but certain experiences make the need for balance much more apparent. And this last month and half has been one of them.
“I feel like I’m not me anymore. I feel like a new person.” says Isabela, shortly after I gave her a drastically different new, short hair cut (at her persistent request).
It’s amazing how just something as simple as a hair cut can completely change a person. I see her differently. She has completely control over her hair. She’s always hated it when I brushed her hair and with long hair it turned into a wild crazy mess everyday. Which I would attempt to brush and she would attempt to run and hide or scream and complain.
Juliet cut her hair short a few weeks ago and ever since then Isabela has been asking me, “I want my hair like Tia’s.” (Tia is Spanish for aunt). And so last week I cut it. It was a true test of skill on my part, but amazing how this week she was able to completely get herself ready on her own for school, including BRUSHING HER OWN HAIR.
And when she said, “I feel like a different person,” well, I feel like a different person too. This last month has been one of the most life transforming months for me. I’m in awe. Everyday is a new discovery. A new revelation.
I’ve been unraveling all of my emotional repression. Sorting through the phases of my life. Unburdening myself from all of the things that I am attached to and/or that do not bring me joy. Giving away all of my furniture. Giving away all of my art. Throwing away all of the photos that showed the fake me. I only want the real me around. I’m done with bullshit. I’m strongly suspect that the intensity of having three children has brought me to the place where I need SIMPLICITY. Honesty. NO B.S.. Just the real me. I just turned 33 years old a few weeks ago and I realized that a whole lot of my life has been fake. Doing things for other people. Worried what others think of me. Living with an imaginary audience in my head.
And it’s time for that “show” for other other people to get thrown in the garbage, where it belongs.
I re-read all of my old journals and felt like I was researching my life. Recognizing common themes, pulling out the same recurrent tests and the themes of my life. I learned that skill well, when I was working on my thesis for my master’s degree. I’ve decided to make a “Life Time Line” of me. The real me. The crappy, messy, painful, fearful, vulnerable me. I may or may not share some of that on my blog. We’ll see.
This is a watercolor painting that I did just a few days before Fiona was born. I found myself being particularly triggered by everyone else’s emotions, mostly my kids screaming and fighting. And then I would start screaming too. Yikes.
So I came up with an affirmation that I would tell myself when I started to react to other people’s negative emotions. “I am the queen of my thoughts and feelings. I choose how I feel.” And when I was right in the middle of the chaos, I would just repeat to myself, “I am the queen. I am the queen. I am the queen.”
Then I did this painting and have it right above my computer so that I can look at it often to remind myself.
Nobody else has the power to make me feel angry. They can trigger me and push my buttons, but I choose how I react. When I get angry, it is my own choice. So I can also choose to not get angry. I can choose to be the queen.
Every night I go for a walk after the kids are asleep and at least 3 times a week I bump into “my little skunk” along the way. One time I was about a foot away from the skunk before I noticed him. My heart started beating like crazy and I slowly backed away from him.
Since he’s become a regular in my life these days, I decided to look up a little more about skunk symbolism to see what message I am supposed to learn from him.
It turns out that a skunk is in fact the ultimate pacifist. He has to be very sure before he uses his defensive stink spray because it can take him up to a week to replenish his juices. He is confident, calm, self-assured and does no harm (except for a little stink).
My little skunk is reminding myself to centre myself into a calm, peaceful state.
This is a watercolor painting that I created today called “Finding Balance” and is a pregnancy painting.
The dancer is self-portrait of myself at 8 months pregnant and gracefully balancing all of the aspects of my life. I oftentimes create paintings as sort of a visual mantra – something to help me to visualize the positive outcome that I want in my life. At this time what I really want is to peacefully maintain a sense of balance.
The hand is to remind myself that I am always supported by my Creator in everything I do, no matter how crazy things may feel. I am never alone and there is always a large, loving hand just waiting to catch me if I fall.
“Peaceful Pregnancy” watercolor painting. This is how I like to imagine the peacefulness growing in my family, (and in my tummy!).
It’s been quite a while since I’ve done a painting. This pregnancy, especially the first 4-5 months really knocked me off my feet and I’ve had a slow recovery. Coming back to painting is an important step in bringing balance and peacefulness back to my life.
I have four pillars in my life that when I attend to each one of them, I feel balanced, peaceful, and joyful.
Pillar 1. My family. This one obviously takes most of my time and energy and tends to throw the other sides of my life out of balance.
Pillar 2. My spiritual life. Saying prayers and meditating everyday.
Pillar 3. Art. Painting in particular.
Pillar 4. Exercise. Thanks to restless leg syndrome, I’m now motivated to exercise everyday.
After I sketched out this painting and was outlining it in ink, just before starting in with the watercolors, Isabela came over and asked me what I was doing. I showed her the picture and she watched me for a while. Then I went in to get some lunch and she came in the kitchen a few minutes later saying, “Mama, I helped you with your drawing!” And yes, after I had spent the whole morning (on my treasured Saturday morning off when Chris watches the kids) working on this drawing, Isabela, I’m sure innocently enough, “helped” me by drawing with permanent ink on the drawing as well.
I was so angry I could hardly contain myself, but I asked her as nicely as I could muster, “Please don’t draw on Mama’s pictures again.” And Isabela, feeling upset that I did not appreciate her “help” retorted with “No! Anytime I see one of your drawings I’m going to draw on it!”
It took me about an hour to cool down and figure out a creative solution that would save my future art work. I took a piece of paper, laid it on top of my drawing, and traced a picture for Isabela so that she could have an identical one that she could draw and color. And then I gave it to her and said, “Anytime you would like me to make you a drawing, I will make you one. Just like you have special things that you don’t like anyone else to touch, so do I. But I will always make one for you if you ask me to.”
She seemed pretty pleased to have her own copy of my drawing and I think I managed to diffuse the situation.
Peacefulness, please come to me…..
Every pregnancy I get a mild dose of restless leg syndrome where I lie down to sleep at night and my legs start bouncing and jerking all over the place. It usually takes an hour or two for me to fall asleep because of it.
A couple of months ago I found a homeopathic remedy called Restful Legs by Hylands homeopathic which settles my legs down in about 10-15 minutes if it’s really bad at night.
But recently I’ve realized that on the days when I do exercise, I fall asleep instantly at night and don’t suffer from restless leg syndrome at all. I’ve been in need of some kind of motivation for exercise, and this one, by far, has been my greatest motivator. Half an hour walk or two hours awake at night?
Thanks to restless leg syndrome, I now have some motivation to do some exercise.
Alas, the stomach flu has finally caught up with me, even though I managed to bypass it last month when everyone else in the house had it. Needless to say, I’ve been spending an ridiculous amount of time watching TV and movies, mostly on quicksilverscreen.com which is bringing me back into the realm of TV addiction, which I have worked so hard to avoid.
We learned the secret from the hospital last year on how to stop throwing up. It really helped me yesterday. Just skip this part if you’re feeling queasy, but it may help you one day. After an hour has passed with no vomiting, then take a few sips of water. If you can hold that down, continue over the next few hours with just sips of water. Then after 6 hours has passed with no vomiting, take a few bites of simple food, like crackers or rice. If that stays, then keep taking small bites slowly over the next few hours.
Then move on to the spiritual healing of the illness. Vomiting is a violent rejection of ideas or fear of the new (from You Can Heal Your Life, by Louise Hay). The affirmation is: “I digest life safely and joyously. Only good comes to me and through me.”
And, as may be obvious by my last posting about kids sharing a room, I have a lot of fear of new things right now, which I’m trying to sort out. In fact, the whole bedtime thing is actually getting better, especially now that we but a childproof lock on the door handle at night so Diego can’t run out. I’ve also spent this last week going from school to school in preparation for Isabela starting kindergarten next year. That scares me a lot. In fact my flu hit the strongest on the day when I came back from visiting a public montessori school close to our house, which I most wanted her to go to, but where I found out they only have 6 spots available (based on lottery) due to all the siblings entering. It’s all in God’s hands. Detach. Let go.
Here is my question. Is it possible to live in North America and not be affected by the body image blues?
We are bombarded by images that tell us it is to beautiful and just how important it is for us to be beautiful in order to be popular, successful, famous or rich. When I was a teenager, I was obsessed with popular media, just like most teenagers are. I was fortunate, however, to have my strong, educated mother. She taught ‘gender issues’ classes at my school and helped us understand the powerful affect of the media on our self-esteem and on the way we view ourselves.
I remember her reading and talking about a book called ‘Reviving Ophelia: Saving the selves of adolescent girls’ by Mary Pipher. Now that I am a mother with a daughter as well, I came across this book and knew it was time for me to prepare myself. What an amazing book! Every parent with a daughter would benefit so much from reading it.
After living for a year in Mexico where I was away from North American popular culture, I came back home for my last year of university. I hadn’t read a fashion magazine for a long time, but saw one at a friend’s house, picked it up and flipped through it for a few minutes. The obvious plummeting effects on my self-esteem shocked me. I was no longer desensitized to the north american media. My time away from it had made me sensitive to it and aware of its effects on me in a way that I never had experienced before, even with the gender issues classes from my mom. I made the conscious choice to stop looking at fashion magazines to protect my health and self-esteem.
Well now, 10 years later, I walk into a Lululemon Athletica store – a very popular clothing store here in Vancouver with very tight stretchy clothes. I walk into the change room, try on a pair of pants, and suddenly I have the exact same feeling as I did 10 years ago looking at the fashion magazines and feeling my self-esteem drop onto the floor. I do not look like a fashion model. I look 4 months pregnant (except that I’m not pregnant). Welcome back, body image blues.
Adolescents obsess about their bodies because they are constantly changing, poking out in new places and getting lumpy, curvy and well, different. Pregnancy is the same obsession. It’s an over-awareness of the body’s changes. Post-pregnancy, though not as dramatic carries that same awareness. “Wow! I fit back into those pants again!” or “Wow! Two years post-pregnancy and I still don’t fit into those pants yet!”
So back to my question. Is it possible to live in North America and not be affected by the body image blues?
That’s what it took me. Every last ounce of self-discipline to keep the darn TV off last week. I figured I had made it this far (no TV for the kids since July) and couldn’t give up now. But as I was laying on the floor in a semi-coma induced by mastitis (a breast infection that brings on flu-like symptoms and lots of pain), boy was I tempted. I was so tempted. In fact, I think that’s all I thought about – getting up and turning on the TV.
I guess what stopped me in the end was that I couldn’t even get UP, much less get up to turn on the TV.
Juliet was just as sick with a cold, laying all over the floor too, while the three kids bounced around the room. I think if either of us could have gotten up, it probably would have been to turn on the TV. Well we couldn’t, so we didn’t. And it turned out to be an interesting social experiment. (Which I will get to in a minute).
I initially decided to call it quits with the TV last summer when Isabela became slightly obsessive-compulsive about TV and started driving me crazy. From the moment she woke up, all I heard was, “Can I watch TV? Can I watch TV?” And I’d usually tell her, “After nap time” to get her to quiet down. So inevitably, every afternoon after a half hour of TV, I’d turn it off and she’d scream and throw a fit. Then she’d wander around the house in a daze saying, “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do.” It was as it if the TV had zapped every last bit of creativity out of her.
Then I read a book called, To Kindle A Soul, by Lawrence Kelemen, pretty darn amazing book.
But don’t read if if you don’t want to turn off the TV. Or, well, read it and choose to ignore just how much your getting screwed up by the TV. And see, I always thought I was being such a great parent because I used pre-selected videos with no commercials. Nope. Turns out it’s the actual TV itself with the blinking, flashing lights and all that makes your brain waves similar to a sleeping state (except without all the healing benefits for your body when you sleep). Your metabolism slows down to molasses, an ironic cruelty for people like me who crave junk food just with the thought of sitting down in front of the TV. It’s better for your body to lie in a dark room, doing nothing, rather than watch TV, according to the hundreds of studies that Kelemen sites.
So let me be perfectly honest. Shutting off the TV for my kids was hard. REALLY painfully hard. I have no more crutch to lean on when everything’s going crazy and I’m trying to make dinner. I have no more crutch for when I’m sick. No more “mental straightjacket” (a term coined by our very own Shane Heins) for those insane times.
And shutting off the TV for myself was even harder. I did it a lot more slowly. Cutting out shows here and there that I used to watch regularly. Noticing the effects that the shows had on me after I watched them. How it effected my sleep. How it effected my body image. I still watch movies now and then. But suddenly, not watching TV at night has given me a burst of energy, something I wasn’t really expecting.
The best part was the effect that it had on my kids. They no longer whine all day long asking for TV. And back to the day when I was sick as a dog, the three of them quite literally played the whole day together so peacefully, so creatively, so joyfully that I was in awe.
And if you still want to read on, whew, after such a long post, well that turned out to be a really interesting social experiment for us because the day we were sick, we had no rules. They could’ve done whatever they wanted and we wouldn’t have noticed or cared. But they were peaceful, creative and happy.
The next day we (Juliet and I) both woke up a little cranky, impatient, still sick and tired but willing our sorry butts up off the floor. But watch out! You have never seen three kids hit each other so often or be so crazy. And thus our unintended social experiment taught us some interesting lessons about chilling out with the rules so they don’t have so much to rebel against.
Congratulations if you made it to the end of this posting. 800 words. The same length as some university papers I used to pull teeth to write.
A friend emailed me recently to ask me about how to wean a baby from breastfeeding. I’ve gotten this question quite a few times from friends, so I thought it was a good time to post something about it.
Health Canada recommends that children be breastfed until they are 2 years old. The world weaning age is actually 4 years old, which would be a shock to most North Americans, but you can’t replace the comfort and health benefits that breastmilk provides. If you choose to wean early, they suggest that you need to continue giving them a milk supplement until they are at least two.
If you choose a formula, then check the ingredients carefully because they usually add a lot of harmful things like sugar, salt and preservatives. You will also need to supplement an omega oil (usually one tsp per day internally is enough) because they get this from your milk, but it cannot be added to formulas because it is heat sensitive (needs to be kept in the fridge and goes bad after about 6 weeks and cannot be heated). It’s a good idea to take a supplement yourself anyways, because most North Americans do not get enough in their diet and what little you have will be sucked out of you by little baby. They also get an incredible amount of healthy bacteria from your milk (like acidophilus, bifidophilus, etc) which promotes healthy intestine functions and digestion.
Now after all that, if you still feel like you need to wean right now, here is what worked for me the best when weaning Isabela (I’m still breastfeeding Diego).
Figure out how long they usually breastfeed for (time them). Then gradually cut down on the time. For example, if it’s 7 minutes, then the next day do 6 minutes (or 6 and a half minutes, depending on how slowly or quickly you want to wean), then do 5 minutes the next day, 4 minutes the next and so on. Finally you’ll be down to a 30 second feed and then finally nothing. They’ll cry when you take them off and they’ll be upset when it’s nothing, but it’s a much smoother transition for your breasts and for them.
You can use this method to cut out certain feedings during the day, while still leaving others. With Diego, I’ve cut out all of his daytime feeds, but I still breastfeed him in the morning when he wakes up, before and after his afternoon nap and at night when he goes to bed. Make sure they get a lot of water to hydrate themselves during the day as well if they’re not having milk during the day.
I’ve known for quite some time that the final part of my candida healing is to include more regular exercise into my life. But with two small children and several years of sleepless nights, it’s taken me quite some time to work up the courage to finally commit to the exercise.
I had my first work out with our personal trainer, Shane Heins, at Gym Jane, and it was so fantastic. Stretching, kettlebells and a short jog. I already can see the healing end results from this wonderfully simple and slow beginning.
Despite the title, you might be wondering what’s in them? And they probably taste horrible! But the true test is if both kids and adults will eat (and enjoy) them, and following the recipe, I have photos of a group full of kids and adults devouring them to prove it. So yes, it is possible to make delicious treats when you have allergies or a restricted diet!
This recipe comes from The Kid Friendly Food Allergy Cookbook by Leslie Hammond and Lynne Marie Rominger under the “Yellow Cake” recipe. I will list what the actual recipe is for those that can eat the other ingredients and but beside it how I changed it.
Cupcake recipe (or regular cake)
3 eggs (or 4.5 tsp egg replacer mixed with 6 TB water)
1 1/2 cups sugar (or 1 1/2 tsp stevia)
2 sticks of butter (or the equivalent of oil or margerine)
3 cups of rice flour
2 tsp baking powder (or 1/2 tsp baking soda mixed with 1 tsp lemon juice)
1 tsp baking soda
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 cup buttermilk (or 1 1/4 cups rice milk mixed with 1 1/2 TB lemon juice)
Bake at 350 degrees. 10-12 minutes for cupcakes or 25 – 35 minutes for cake.
Since we were bringing them as a treat for Isabela’s music class graduation party, we put colored sprinkles on them them make it a little extra special.
And here are some pictures of the kids enjoying their cupcakes….
And here they all are with their graduation present from Amy.
And with the parents and the next generation of kids.
Having gone to this music class every week for almost two years, it became a real parenting support group for us and we got to watch as several of us became pregnant and had second children. I’m going to miss getting together with these amazing mothers and helping each other solve our life problems, share new ideas and inspire each other to try new things.
I love the idea of community gardens – renting out a small plot of land for a very small fee and allowing those who don’t have a yard to grow vegetables and flowers.
This weekend when we went to visit my grandparent-in-laws, we spent some time with them at their community garden in Duncan and it was so obvious what a wonderful community support network it creates for the people there. Everyone knew each other, shared the crops from their garden, were happy to see each other and proud of the things that they grew. They also had a large plot that where vegetables were grown and then donated to a women’s shelter. It was really wonderful.
Joyce, Isa and Diego in the Duncan Community Garden (Joyce and Bill’s plot).
Bill watering the garden.
Isa picks some beans.
Diego and I. Having a restful moment.
The quality of the light shining through these flowers really caught my eye. The colors were so bold against the clear blue sky.
There are still bits of the yeast infection that are lingering around for me, and that’s why I’ve really come to realize that the physical healing will only be complete when it is combined with the spiritual and emotional healing. So I still have a lot of emotional work to clear, in order to rebalance my body’s yeast.
From You Can Heal Your Life, the probable emotional cause for a yeast infection is denying your own needs, not supporting yourself, feeling very scattered, lots of frustration and anger, demanding and untrusting in relationships, great takers, stagnating beliefs, refusal to release the past or letting the past rule today.
The new thought pattern (affirmation) is: I now choose to support myself in loving, joyous ways. I give myself permission to be all that I can be, and I deserve the very best in life. I love and appreciate myself and others. I live in the present moment, joyous and free.
This is known by many names: thrush, yeast, candida, fungus and can take over in various parts of the body. Usually in infants it’s in the mouth (then transferred to the mother’s nipples from breastfeeding – ouch!) or as a fungal diaper rash. It can be manifested in females as vaginal itchness or take over the intestines and create a lot of indigestion. It can to go the bladder and create bladder infections, or move to the toes and create athlete’s foot. It can also move up to the milk ducts and create plugged ducts or mastitis.
This is such a tough thing to deal with, but actually extremely common. I’ve had an overgrowth of yeast in my body since I was pregnant with Diego and it’s been a slow road to recovery. In the process I’ve learned a lot from reading every book I could find about it. I found the Yeast Connection books especially helpful and easy to read. Also the book Power Healing (previously called The Four Pillars of Healing) introduced me to a lot of new ideas about nutrition and healing. I went onto a strict Candida diet for about 8 months and now primarily try to limit cheese, bread and sugar. I also make sure to take omega oils everyday (which most North Americans are hugely deficient in). I usually use essential balance 3-6-9 because they’re the cheapest of the good quality ones that I’ve found, but of course if you want the best (and can afford it), you need Udo’s Choice. Check out his website here about why you need them.
Nystatin and Dyflucan are the usual treatments from doctors, but without some lifestyle or dietary changes, these antifungal drugs usually do not have a lasting effect. There are a lot of other herbs and homeopathic rememdies that I’ve tried. Grapefruit seed extract has helped me the most as well as Acidophilus and Bifidophilus. These two “friendly bacteria” strains are two of several other strains that reside in the small and large intestines and help to maintain a positive yeast balance in the body. These friendly bacteria are destroyed when you take antibiotics, so you have to replace them in some way. Yogurt sometimes carries one strain of acidophilus. There are so many other herbal remedies, but the thing that’s helped me the most is a couple of visits to a Chinese doctor who helped clear most of the infection for me.
Back to the topic of no sugar, our whole extended family went out for gelato last week, another huge special (rare) treat and the kids were so excited. I have to say, we paid for it though because Isa screamed and cried for two hours afterwards in the sugar crash before she fell asleep. And Diego got a runny nose the next day. Nevertheless, it was fun while we were there. 250 flavours and Gypsy Kings playing and all the kids dancing.
The next day Isa asks my dad, “When are we going back to the ice cream store?”
And he says, “Maybe when you’re six.” (She’s almost four.)
She says, “Oh. OK.”
Choosing a flavour. Isabela and grandma.
Diego getting his first tastes of gelato EVER in his life.
Mom, Chris, Isa, Me, Juliet
My dad eating ice cream.
My mom too.
And Isabela.
Stevia is an amazing, completely natural sweetener that is 300 times sweeter than sugar. It has zero calories, does not create yeast infections and actually helps to regulate blood sugar levels, so it is completely safe for diabetics.
Stevia comes from a plant and is therefore completely natural. It came onto the market at the same time that the cancer-causing aspartame did, and therefore, due to FDA politics, stevia hasn’t spread as rapidly as in other countries around the world. More on this, click here.
When I was pregnant with my second child, the pregnancy hormones created a lot of yeast overgrowth in my body, so I completely switched over to stevia. I first learned about it when I was living in Brazil where it was very commonly used in a liquid form, as a coffee sweetener. Using stevia has helped me to dramatically decrease my hypoglycemic episodes, regulate my blood sugar levels, decrease cravings for sweets and junk food, and rebalance the overgrowth of yeast in my body.
Normally I buy the white powder stevia, which is 300 times sweeter than sugar, so just use a little bit! You can also use the dried, crushed leaves of the plant (a green powder) which is 30 times sweeter than sugar. In the beginning, I bought a few brands that had a bitter aftertaste and got a little turned off, but then learned that the high quality plants will not have that bitterness. I found the brand Sweet Leaf and am sticking with them.
Experimenting around, I’ve found that I’ve been able to use stevia in all of my regular “sugar” recipes.
Normally I use the ratio of:
1 cup sugar = 1 tsp stevia
3/4 c. sugar = 3/4 tsp stevia
1/2 c. sugar = 1/2 tsp stevia
1/4 c. sugar = 1/4 tsp stevia
But if I want something really sweet, like cookies, then I’ll add a little more than this. There’s also a couple of great stevia cookbooks, like Baking with Stevia: Recipes for the Sweet Leaf, by Rita Depuydt and some great online resources. This one is my favorite.
Two books that have greatly impacted my life of the last two years have been “You Can Heal Your Life” by Louise Hay and “When the Body Says No” by Gabor Mate. Both of them dive in to the complex issue of how our emotions affect our physical bodies and that by “healing” or transforming our emotions, we can help to heal our bodies. So when I found out two days ago that I needed a root canal redone to my front tooth, which I fell on, chipped and had a root canal previously done on it when I was ten years old, I immediately opened up my copy of You Can Heal Your Life, to try to figure out what this issue might be about. According to Louise Hay, the probably cause is “Can’t bite into anything anymore. Root beliefs being destroyed.” And the new thought pattern (affirmation), “I create firm foundations for myself and for my life. I choose my beliefs to support me joyously.”
When I was 10 years old, I started to become more self-consciousness about my body, self-image, being different, being a Baha’i, my relationships with girls, my relationships with boy, wanting to be the same as others, and to be popular. Obviously I still have a lot of these issues that I carry unconsciously, and seeing from the self-image issues that are already showing up in Isabela, (see: Isabela’s unique fashion) I have to really work at excavating them, so that I don’t pass them all on to my kids. To me, it seems like getting a root canal is a metaphor for my life of needing to root up those issues from when I was 10 years old that implanted themselves. It’s time for them to go now so that I can create a really solid, firm foundation for myself, and for my children.
Here I am getting a root canal.
A picture of the hole in my tooth.
A very creative idea: TV on the ceiling at the dentist office. (A big selling point for Isabela, who goes in for her first dentist appointment next week).
And finally, half of my face frozen.
Last week I went to a fabulous Chinese doctor that we’ve all started seeing in the last few months. She’s clearing most of our allergies and other health issues that no other doctor was able to fix. While I was waiting in the reception room, child-free, I must add, since Chris was at home with the kids, I almost didn’t know what to do with myself. All I had with me was my camera, so I pulled it out and started taking pictures. On the receptionist’s desk was an orange gerbera daisy, which also happened to be my favorite flower.
The doctor spent almost the whole session doing emotional clearing for me and a few days later, without even realizing it, I starting thinking things like, “I love my life.” “Everything’s so great.” And then I was able to start painting again without getting mastitis, like almost every time before. Amazing.
I’ve been really inspired by Danny Gregory’s books “Everyday Matters” and the “Creative License” (http://www.dannygregory.com) to just get sketching more and to sketch the ordinary things. He has a great list of 10 thousand things to draw, in case you get stuck on ideas.
So I decided to do this watercolor sketch of my favorite spices that I use in the kitchen. Seems like just about everything I cook uses a mixture of these spices.
