i DO mean to Bragg!

This past summer I found a Bragg book at a rummage sale. I had heard of the Bragg's and their healthy lifestyle. We had their apple cider vinegar in our pantry. But, neither my husband or I really got "into it", not until a couple of weeks ago.

Paul Bragg and his daughter Patricia have been self-proclaimed "health pioneers" for several decades. In a nutshell, they believe that a healthy lifestyle along with a diet full of "live foods" and plenty of water, will not only extend your life, but improve the quality of that life as well.
My husband, usually being the harder one to prod of the two of us, instantly read the book from cover to cover. He gave up his "sometime habit" of drinking soda pop, and filled it instead with drinking (distilled) water. I, too, began to get into the habit of drinking more (distilled) water and upping my intake of green tea, as well. Our diets also include lots of "raw" (not cooked) veggies and plenty of fresh fruit. The kids, too, have being downing more water and slowly getting on the healthier eating band wagon. I will admit, ditching the processed foods is tough! When shopping at the grocery store it is a real challenge to avoid the "middle aisles" and stick to "live" foods. But, going on a couple of weeks now, it is becoming easier.

I pulled out the dehydrator and started to dry tons of apples. Amazingly, the kids all love their condensed sweetness! They gobble them up in no time. I basically wash, peel, and core enough apples to fit on all the shelves of my dehydrator. I have found that golden delicious apples are amazing dried! I cut the apples into rings and in about 24 hours they are ready to eat!
Now that apple season is in full swing it is fun to try all sorts of apple recipes. Apple sauce is an easy treat as well. I wash, core, and slice apples. Put into a saucepan with a touch of water. Cover and let a low heat soften the apples into a yummy sauce. I sprinkle a bit of cinnamon and sugar over it and it is so tasty!

Back to Bragg. I have started TODAY, to try giving up coffee, again! I tried last week, cold turkey, but I forgot to add something else containing mild caffeine, so I got that dreaded "caffeine headache". After talking with my uncle who gave up coffee, he claims that he has much more energy and less aches and pains. So, I am giving it another shot! I have switched to drinking hot tea (which I love), so I will hope for the best and report back on how it is going.

Another part of my new healthy lifestyle is a glass of water with apple cider vinegar mixed in. I use the Bragg apple cider vinegar. I only mix in a tablespoon or so. The taste is bitter, but the health benefits claim to be extraordinary. I usually have a glass a day, but now that cold and flu season are here, I may up it to 2 a day.

So, there you have it. I would love to share my books ( I have recently ordered two other Bragg books) with my friends and family who would like to see what Bragg is all about. Just let me know!

pretty in pink

The other day my husband and I were talking, and the subject of home economics class, in school, came up. I have absolutely NO idea as to how we came to this topic. I find it rather odd now, but it prompted several memories (some better than others!) Suddenly I was taken back to Albright Middle School in the mid 1980's, and a very pink, and a very LARGE, sweatshirt popped into my mind!

When I entered middle school I had to welcome home economics (home ec.) class into my schedule. I didn't think much of it. It was simply the class known for baking cookies, sewing toss pillows, and all those things related to preparing oneself for the harsh reality of the world of "real life!" For the obvious reasons the girls got more giddy about home ec. than the boys did. There were a few exceptions though. The world of home ec. opened my eyes to how to bake, prepare a meal for my teacher, hand-sew, a rather groovy, patch-work toss pillow, and... AND...the dreaded pink sweatshirt! Let me just dive into the sorted details.

The class assignment was learning the "basics" on the sewing machine. Our job was to go out and purchase a pattern for a sweatshirt, buy fabric, bring it all back and get to work on it. Well, I purchased a pattern for a common crew neck sweatshirt. One important key detail that I seemed to overlook, however, was the size! I managed to get a very-off size, leaning heavily on the large size. Next mission, find fabric. After much debate, a nice bubble gum pink was settled on. Mission complete, I brought it all back to school and the process began. Yards of pink thread, several broken needles, and a whole heck of anxiety thrown in, a sweatshirt was produced. The finished product was a nice, bubble gum pink, sweatshirt dress that exceeded the length of my hands and pushed the limits, almost touching my knees! The other children surfaced withe basic gray, white, and blue sweatshirts that were "normal" sized and able to be proudly worn. No. Not me. My sweatshirt stood out about as badly as Chuck Shnerfiels blaze orange job. Luckily the teacher did not grade on correct size (she must have felt really bad for me as well). I got a decent grade and was able to tug along those bubble gum memories even to this day!



While on the subject of home ec., do schools still offer this very worthwhile class anymore? Do schools still dabble with plugging in those irons, revving up those sewing machines, and cranking up the oven temperatures? If not, why? Sure my kids learn some of those skills at our home, but many kids are not as fortunate to. Sure it is important too know how to divide fractions and properly form a sentence. But, in REAL life ( the one you and I are currently living in) it also requires one to know how to cook a simple egg, mend a fallen off button on that dress shirt, and learn that an iron is REALLY hot!!

If I thinking back, really hard, I can still smell those burnt brownies and feel the endless pin-pricks from those darn straight pins as I pinned my "quilt pillow" (which I still have, by the way!)
My gi-normous bubble gum sweatshirt may have drifted off to never-never land, but those skills and real "life lessons" that I acquired along with all the pink thread, have seen me through my entire life.

an old friend

"Old friends are best" ~ John Selden

It recently occured to me that I currently own a pair of very old, very holey, very tired looking slippers. Most anyone else probably would have tossed them with yesterdays news. I, on the other hand, still feel their comfort and have decided to hang on to them, at least for one more day. Don't get me wrong! I "know" I need a new pair! I have tried looking for a perfect replacement. Somehow, though, they just don't fit the same way. The don't hug my feet like my old ones do. They somehow feel foreign. I admit it! My slippers have become my "woobies" (for those of you that have not seen the 1980's movie Mr. Mom, you wouldn't understand!!)

Don't we all have our own "woobie" in our own lives though? Come on! I know you do. Whether it be a favorite concert t-shirt from high school that brings back such wonderful memories that it would be a crime to throw out. Or, maybe that pair of Levi's that have more holes than fabric left? Some of you may have that childhood blanket or stuffed teddy that still manages to surface magically every now and again. We all have them, whether we care to admit it or not.

Winter is quickly coming. The holes in my toe portion of my "woobies" are barely hanging on. My tootsies will be cold! I know I will have to find a replacement pair, and soon. In the meantime, though, I will happily slip on my "old reliables" and shuffle along as I savor my good old friends...one last day.

spring break

Ultimately, we know where the destination is going to be. It's all about the journey. The journey that takes life and throws in risk, courage and a large heaping of curiosity

Just recently my family of five took a road trip for spring break. We knew our first destination would be Oconomowoc Wisconsin for Easter and that our last stop would be home. All the "in- betweens" were a sprinkling of who-knows, and that is just the way this family rolls!

I have always been a huge fan of winging it. Winging it, as in setting aside the road map and just seeing where life leads me. Trying that different route, driving that scenic back road, or touring that unknown spot that is just screaming for me to explore, had always been how this girl lives. Is it genetic? I have no idea, all I know is that there is a whole heck of a lot in life to explore and much of that is not on the road well traveled.

Back to our spring break! Easter in Oconomowoc was well spent with family and a new friend. After a few days of catching up with family we hit the road and headed west. With a ton of scenic back roads and an equally amount of St. Vincent De Paul thrift shops, our sights were set on Wisconsin Dells (aka Wally World, as I like to call it!)

For those of you that have never "experienced" the Dells it is truly a world of its own! The town is filled with waterparks, themed restaurants and villages, trinket shops and tourist traps of all kinds. Just the kind of place a family could get sucked into and hardly know what hit them. It was the off-peak season though, so we were presented with a place that kinda resembled a ghost town. Nonetheless, we managed to find fun in the moment. We stayed at the Kalahari resort and the kids delighted in the ginormous indoor waterpark! After a heavy dose of frolic and fun (and not to mention a dizzying amount of chlorine!) we hit the road in search of our next memory. We took the back roads out of the Dells and hit Baraboo along the way down south. Baraboo was once the hot-spot for the cirus circuit. The Ringling brothers started their famous circus there back in 1884. It remained there until the Ringling brothers merged with the Barnum and Bailey show. Currently their is a Circus Museum there with not much else. Culvers was one of the only shining highlights of that side trip. The hilly Wisconsin countryside, however, was a beautiful feast to my eyes. With the fresh green earth emerging, everything looked so fresh and alive. A perfect balance against the striking red wooden barns and old time white farm houses. This truly is America's heartland.

We made our next stop in lovely Madison. Some years back we lived there with our newly emerging family. My son was only 6 months old when we moved there and our first daughter was born there. Madison is just the perfect sized town that holds a ton of different layers. It has the University of Wisconsin and all that culture that goes along with college life. The state capitol is there. The diversity there is so captivating and alluring. Throw in a free zoo and a number of beautiful lakes and you have a wonderful place to visit. We spent almost three days in Madison and still it was not enough time to explore. A side trip was to Black Earth and to the "Midwest's largest shoe store." The Shoe Box is a site worth seeing! Here in this rinky dinky town in the middle of corn/cow heaven is a rather large sized building housed with more shoes then I have ever seen in my entire life! The staff was super friendly and we made out with some rather awesome deals. Back in Madison on a random road to somewhere we encountered a store with a rather odd name. The sign on the outside said, "Dig and Save." With curiosity peaked we parked the car and headed in to see what it was. Inside we were presented with a good-sized room filled with large-sized cardboard boxes. Inside each box was a heaping assortment of all types of clothing items. These boxes were literally overflowing! The sign on the wall said that clothing was $1.00 a pound! In the back of the store was a whole separate area what housed household items, do-dad's and what-nots. These items were 35cents a pound. A quick stay was not enough. This place requires one to spend some quality time, a whole mess of patience, and an open mind!

Our stay in Madison was fast and fun but soon we needed to head out. We exited and continued on south soon entering Illinois. The pace quickly changed the closer we got to Chicago. Cars and all the rush-rush made my head spin. We made a pit stop at IKEA in Schaumburg, stayed at a local hotel, and recharged for our last leg of the journey. We made our last stop to the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. Arriving mid morning we made our way into this massive building housed with oodles of interest. The place was not too packed for a Saturday in Chicago. Everywhere you looked there was something amazing to look at and play with. It was very interactive and the kids (and adults) were fully engaged. Honestly, one day is not enough time to truly get the full effect of this awesome place. Some hours later and with three tired and hungry kids we loaded the car for our final destination in sight..home.

The week for me was fun, relaxing, and restorative. I tried my best to "live in the moment" every day. This truly made a huge difference! This journey may have ended, but soon enough the next will take off. Already we are planning our next adventure, possibly down south to Texas? In the meantime, while the memories are still fresh (and the laundry needs to be washed), I shall savor our spring break journey and be forever blessed by this great land that we live.

it's not easy being GREEN?

"It's not that easy being green...when green is all there is to be
It could make you wonder why, but why wonder why
Wonder, I am green and it'll do fine, it's beautiful
And I think it's what I want to be."

Do you remember Kermit the Frog singing this song? I do. It had a different meaning back then, but somehow it could relate to this post, right now.

The world somehow became "green" overnight, didn't it? It came with a big bang. Everything, everywhere, and (it seems) everyone, is jumping on the green bandwagon. Being "green" = being earth friendly. Being conscious of our earth and what we can do to make it a better place to live in.

With Earth Day right around the corner (April 22nd) I thought I would share some of my favorite web sites that have some awesome information on all things green. Enjoy!


greenyour.com
about greening your life
lowimpactliving.com

http://www.laundrylist.org/
set up that clothes line!

www.catalogchoice.org/

stop the "paper" catalogs and browse online instead