It's early...

I've been waking up at 5.30 am on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays these past few weeks. It is by choice, though I may not have been of sound mind when choosing that choice. A pre-dawn boot-camp Groupon sounded positively invigorating when I signed up in January. And it is... once I can get out of bed and into the dark, wet Seattle mornings to the Phinney Ridge Neighborhood Association building.

When I wake up I tell myself, "Don't think, Alisha." Auto-pilot is the best way to get myself there.

After totally working the squats for an hour I do feel awesome, as anticipated. I signed up for this punishment not only for the physical benefits, but also just to remind myself that, not only can I wake up at 5.30 am to work-out, I am capable of quite a bit more. Starting my morning like this helps me to focus and get the momentum going for the rest of the day.

I'm totally into morning rituals to give me a bit of rhythm. These days, my ritual/ get-out-of-bed bribe is listening to my audio version of The Help in the car on the way to boot camp. (Audio is a great way to read The Help by the way. Those voice actors are something else!). It's so good I often find myself doing several loops around the neighborhood before parking to hear what's going to happen next.

When I wasn't doing morning work-outs, I started my day like this...

It's an immunity tea that really wakes the body up. The cayenne gives that little extra kick. (Be careful not to inhale any surface cayenne while drinking, now that is a kick.) While sipping I write my morning pages and set my intentions for the day. Sometimes I read for 20 minutes, just because. Then I drink drip coffee to off-set the immunity tea -- we can't be perfect.

I love having rituals to help me get going and stop me from reinventing the wheel every morning when faced with a new day. Even though I've been waking up and getting on with things successfully for three decades, it's always a bit of a shock to get started, isn't it? Rituals ease me right in...

What are your morning rituals?

Raw, vegan AND happy? All at once?!

Welcome back!

That's what my blog said when I logged on today. This five month blog sabbatical has certainly been restful, but I was encouraged to restart the ol' engine today as I'm kind of overflowing with information.

 {Image from The Chalkboard Mag. Recognize that handwriting? That's right.}

At the end of 2011 I decided to kick off the new year with a month of intentional eating, or whatever the socially correct term for diet/ detox/ cleanse may be. I like the word reset, which I stole from Sarah Fae over at the incredible Addicted to Veggies website.

After just one too many peppermint crinkle cookies over the holidays I was ready to reset my health.

I read a lot of health and nutrition books but there was one that captivated my attention last year called The Beauty Detox Solution. I didn't become obsessed with it because of a desire to become even more beautiful, but more for the detox solution part. The author, Kimberly Snyder, packed that book with all sorts of good practice for healthy digestion and eating for cleansing, and she presented it all in a way that resonated with me.

Talking about digestion makes for fascinating conversation, but not the type you engage in as ice breaker material at a party. But this year one of my goals was to focus on gut health. Not only the literal gut and caring for my colon and surrounding digestive organs, but also my intuitive gut, and learning how to listen to it better.

I think this focus on gut health may have been a great example of me listening to my gut to be honest. For some reason I just became fascinated with digestion, and as I began the "reset" my grandmother was  diagnosed with abdominal cancer -- a complete shock to everyone. By the time they found the cancer it was spread all throughout her GI and abdominal organs, she was give ten days to live and she passed away on January 18 during one of the biggest snowstorms we've seen in a awhile. Cancer has taken another wonderful woman (who lived a long and rich life though -- my grandma was almost 90 years old). While I mourn and celebrate a life, I can also say my digestive vigilance has been strengthened.


This month, even with clearly a lot going on, I dug right in. Consider me reset. I feel healthy and empowered to make good, veggie-centric choices. I'm not going to become a hard-core vegan but I am definitely going to lay off the dairy from now on.

Last week, when a friend said they were about to start a Beauty Detox Solution-inspired plan I wrote down some of the key things I've learned along the way. I thought I'd capture them and share with anyone else as interested as I am in this plant-based, whole food, raw, vegan diet.


Here's what I did and what I learned:

•  Week 1: Elimination Giving up my favorite toxins (coffee, chocolate and alcohol) nearly killed me, but it felt great to remind my body who was in control. Because herbal tea is no substitute for coffee, I was ecstatic to discover a formidable substitute called Teeccino. You can get it in tea bag or ground-up format, it's caffeine free and, with a bit of cinnamon and almond milk, is as good a replacement for coffee that you'll find.  

• Throughout the month I focused on these basic tenets: 
• Attempt to eat raw until dinner 
• Vegan throughout (since I'm veggie anyway the main sacrifice was the dairy, though I'm surprised how quickly I got used to it. It helps when you start thinking about milk and cheese as "cow mucus", a term vegans seems to love. )
• Start each day with a glowing green smoothie. Yes, it's green and an unorthodox breakfast choice, but I have converted a fair few omnivores to this amazing drink (see below). 

• Weeks 2 & 3:Sustain  My original plan was to do some juice fasting in this second week, but life got a bit hectic and, listening to my body, I realized this wasn't the best time for it. As someone prone to extremism, though I loved the challenge of a mostly raw, vegan month, I knew that my long-term health was more important than winning a short-term health challenge. I wanted to try some new recipes, supplements and methods to build my heath portfolio and see what things worked for me. Also important to me, in addition to a squeaky clean colon, is quality of life. Stressing about food and deprivation isn't worth it, so giving myself grace through scheduled in splurge meals helped get me through. In week 2 I reintroduced coffee and dark chocolate (70%), but only every other day to give my body a break. (Baby steps.)

• My average day looked like this:
• Wake up to hot water with sliced ginger, a load of lemon and a dash of cayenne pepper
• Probiotics: I used New Chapter and was happy with them. Want to check out Dr. Ohhira's (apparently the best, not cheap though). Heard that Garden of Life and Mega Foods are also good brands. Probiotics are good for grooming your helpful intestinal flora.
  
• Glowing Green Smoothie! (love adding herbs such as basil, cilantro or mint. Ginger is also great; I use two apples instead of a pear, sprouts are good in it too. Love kale in the winter as a spinach sub.)
• Some quiet time to set my intentions and remind myself what I'm doing. It's kind of a prayer/ meditation/ quiet time. At the beginning of the week I did some meal planning as well to make sure I had a general plan. Having a plan is essential.
  
• Lunch: tried lots of Kimberly Snyder's recipes from the BDS. Lots of big, veggie-laden salads with yummy homemade dressings, some raw soups and, when really hungry, some avocado toast with Ezekial 29 sprouted bread. (Using coconut oil instead of butter is amazing. The toast isn't raw but we can only do so much.)
• Snack: some fruit, kombucha (Love the GT brand gingerade flavor -- this stuff is amazing and full of probiotics, you can load up at Whole Foods or PCC; the cherry chia was also fun); raw almonds; a frozen banana smoothie with cinnamon/ almond milk/ splash of vanilla extract may rock your world. A good snack for when you need an energy boost is chia seeds soaked in almond milk with a bit of cinnamon/ sliced banana. I really like the taste!
  
• Dinner: tried lots of new recipes, roasted or steamed veg with dressing, quinoa, salad. Basically just loaded as many vegetables into my body as possible with homemade dressings. Added 1-2 TBSP ground flaxseed. Great nutty taste and Spectrum is a good brand. Tried making the Probiotic & Enzyme salad but the Firefly Kitchen brand is much tastier. I love their kimchi and their Ruby Red Saurkraut is good too. This stuff is not cheap though ($6-10, depending on the type you get).
  
• Before bed: detox tea (Traditional Medicinals or Yogi tea, or just plain Mint tea); magnesium supplements. Just started taking the Mag07 supplements that Kimberly recommends (supposed to filled your gut with oxygen and clear you right out!) but the jury is still out on these.  

• Other tips:
• Raw apple cider vinegar is supposed to be good for digestion. Braggs is a good brand. I've been putting a splash into hot water and sipping on that and it's surprisingly good.
  
• Nutritional yeast is great for flavoring. You can use in dressings or sprinkle on food like parmasan. I bought some in the bulk section of my local supermarket, but again Braggs is a good brand to buy in a container.
• I've been drinking tons of almond milk and am planning to try making some in the coming weeks. Raw almonds are always great to have on hand for when you hit an energy slump. 
• I've found that the whole principle of light to heavy eating really works for me. Also, I try and eat my carbs for lunch and proteins for dinner and try my hand at food combining where possible. This can be a pain so I just keep it in the back of my mind. In BDS Kimberly goes into more detail about why it's good to think about food combining, and though I'd always been opposed (so much hassle) she makes some good points and I find it really works.
  
• I highly recommend scheduled-in splurges so all this change doesn't seem oppressive. I think quality of life and not stressing about food is really important for digestion (and general happiness) so I'm not out to kill myself. 
• www.iherb.com is a great place to buy natural food items. Cheap and no shipping costs, plus you can choose some free samples with each order. First time buyers can use my voucher code (VUF744) for $5 off.

• Favorite recipes:
• Carrot-ginger dressing a la Gwyneth Paltrow's Goop (I LOVE this!)
  
• Liquid Gold Elixir dressing from Natalia Rose. (Note: I use 1/2 cup lemon juice, olive oil, skipped the bee pollen and chili powder and cut the garlic in half. You can totally make it to taste. This is amazing over steamed veg and quinoa.) 
• I'm always experimenting with a new combo of tahini, miso paste, sesame oil, ginger, garlic and tamari (just because nama shoyu/ raw soy sauce is like $10 a bottle) for dressings. Just a few tablespoons of tahini &/ or miso with the juice of a lemon and some water is always a treat. I am, in fairness, naturally inclined toward Asian-flavored foods.
• Beauty Detox Solution recipes: love the oil-free basil lover's dressing (tastes like pesto), the raw teriyaki sauce is good and the red pepper soup I made several times.
• Other resources: I find that reading about healthy eating during a reset is helpful. So much of our food choices are down to planning and motivation, so keeping the motivation levels high is important. 
  • Books: Beauty Detox Solution by Kimberly Snyder; Crazy Sexy Diet by Kris Carr; Clean by Alejandro Junger; Raw Food Detox Diet by Natalia Rose
  • Blogs: Linda Wagner; Kimberly Snyder (worth signing up to her newsletter); Addicted to Veggies (tons of raw, vegan recipes); Spinach & Yoga; The Chalkboard Mag (overall wellness features)
  • Videos: Forks Over Knives (what my husband calls vegan propoganda); Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead (haven't seen but comes highly recommended), Crazy Sexy Cancer (haven't seen, just heard about).
    
    
    
    
    Hope there are a few morsels of wellness you can pick out and use for yourself!

Fallow blog

I've been pretty poor at tending my blog this summer.  Even after all the excitement over the new title, I just deflated. I used to be incredibly consistent, staying up late to post at least once per week. I knew that consistency is key and I knew that I needed to be building my platform if I ever want to get published. I knew that sometimes you have to work through a lack of inspiration and get 'er done.

But in this season, despite all these things about blogging that I know, it's felt right to let it go a bit.

At first I thought I was simply being unmotivated, but recently a word came to me for how I feel: fallow. 

Fallow means left unsown for a season in order to restore fertility.

My e-creativity needs that, no matter how many rules of blogging this fallowness breaks. I'm such a rebel.

I'm not sure how long this fallow thing will last, I just thought I'd put it out there so you'd know that I'm not being lazy, just seasonal. See you whenever the sowing season starts up next!

10 on 10 Photo Project:: August

A staff picnic at Lake Wilderness Park in Maple Valley meant that my day started out like this...

Fortunately, the first aid kit was unnecessary, but it was good to know the park's health and safety standards were up to scratch. Leslie Knope would be proud.

Not bad for a Wednesday morning, really.

Food was consumed.

Newborn babies were corralled around.

The view of Seattle coming from the south on 99 can sometimes be stunning. You'll have to just trust me on this. 

Blueberries!

The first of the dahlias has bloomed. In a few weeks we'll have these bad boys coming out of our ears, and I cannot wait.

The first tomato of 2011. Woo hoo. A real week of firsts in the garden.

I have been on an absolute tahini rampage recently. This is the dressing I've been using from Mayumi's Kitchen (Mayumi was Madonna's personal chef for years) and it's been treating me well so far. If you have any good tahini tips or recipes, do share!


Ten on ten is a monthly photo project started by Rebekah at a bit of sunshine. If you want to play next time, just take ten photos on the 10th of the month and post them on your blog. Check out other people's days here. 

Don't Think, Just Jump

Well, I'm back from my first Writer's Conference, which was equal parts amazing, stimulating and exhausting! My goal was to learn as much as possible about the craft of writing and the industry of publishing and to pitch my project to  agents and editors. This pitching business, as you may imagine, is kind of nerve-wracking. Cold-selling is never fun, but it's even harder when you are so intimately involved in the product. When pitching memoir you are not only pitching your voice and storytelling skills, but also, as the main character, your life. No pressure or anything.

My philosophy on doing frightening tasks is to jump right in without thinking too much. Which is how I ended up in an Albanian refugee camp when I was 19 or in central England with no job, money, friends or family (barring my new husband) when I was 25. These are two decisions I'm very glad I made, though if I would have thought too hard about what I was getting myself into I may not have made those jumps. Thinking -- though not without its merits -- can be an incredibly dangerous procrastination tool.

One tidbit I took away this weekend was that, over his typewriter, Ray Bradbury posted the words "Don't think." From Bob Mayer's excellent talk, I was also encouraged to lean into fear, because action is the only way to grow courage.

So, this weekend I leaned right in and approached as many people as possible to tell them about my book. I submitted my synopsis to a synopsis boot camp to be torn apart, America's Got Talent-style. I put myself out there. Though it was scary at first, it certainly became much easier by the end. And I was really encouraged by response, the crazy reality that my book just may be interesting to other people.

The pro-activity also introduced me to some new writer friends, such as the lovely Alexis, a Young Adult paranormal fiction writer also living in Seattle, and Heidi, an inspirational girl from B.C. who is writing a memoir about a car accident that killed her best friend, burned 52% of her body and required the amputation of both her legs below the knee. But you'd never know it from Heidi's bubbly personality that she'd gone through all this. I just watched a video that tells her story and definitely encourage you to do the same.

Sometimes jumping right in without thinking isn't always the best tact, but this weekend it was well worth it.


What about you? When it comes to approaching something outside your comfort (something you know you need to do), do you generally think first or just jump right in?

The importance of having purpose

One of my favorite book genres is memoir. I love knowing that a story is based on real life and that I can go on wikipedia and google images and stalk the author after I finish reading the book, gathering as much behind-the-scenes information as possible. Another reason I read memoir is that I'm writing a memoir, and it's important to read in the genre you work in.

A perk of writing memoir is the wealth of primary material from which to draw on. I've got so many stories from my four years in the UK that I'll never be able to use them all. Like the time I was walking home one summer evening from a friend's house in Fulham and totally slipped on what I quickly realized was human vomit. It was quite unpleasant, seeing as I was wearing flip flops and a skirt and had to ride the bus home with the remnant barf caked to my shin. When writing a book about your life you get to relive your stories again and again as you brainstorm, write and rewrite and rewrite some more.

Until there comes a point after you've spent a year and a half rehashing your stories ad nauseum when you get so sick of reliving the same four years and want to just move on with your life and not have to think about England every single day.

It's easy, when you are the topic of your writing project, to become jaded and dismissive -- who would want to read about little old me slipping on human vomit in West London? It's times like these when I need an author statement to bring me back to the purpose behind why I write.

I was inspired about this the other month while reading the memoir This is Not The Story You Think It Is. The author, Laura Munson, was certainly correct about the title -- even though I'd read the synopsis there was still way more too this my-husband-is-leaving-me-but-I-don't-buy-it play-by-play than I expected. Ms. Munson had 14 novels rejected by publishers before getting this memoir about the intense summer of marital strife published and she has a lot to say about contentment, intentionality, success and living the creative life.

She must have gone back to her author statement many times throughout the years of writing and rejection, trying to see in the dark what the point of writing more words even was.

I've written statements like an author statement in the past, but after I read hers I decided to whip one up again. Here's what I came up with: "I write to bring truth, encouragement, clarification, simplicity and life where it's needed. To bring order out of chaos and wholeness out of confusion. To help people, rich and poor, live to their full potential and to thrive."

It may not mean much to someone else, but for me it's important to come back to my purpose as often as necessary. I've been loving the following quote recently, which pretty much sums up the importance of vigilant purpose-honing:  

"People don't leave because things are hard. They leave because it's no longer worth it."

Creating something from scratch is exhausting work, but when you have purpose, it's completely worth it. It reminds me that my story is about much more than slipping on vomit (that anecdote's probably not going to make it in the book, sadly), it's about sharing a journey and encouraging people on similar journey's along the way.

Do you have a purpose statement? I won't ask you to share it but encourage you to think about what it would look like.

OK, now back to writing that book of mine... :)

My first fashion fashion show

Despite that fact that recent blog posting frequency may suggest otherwise, I've actually been quite active in the last few weeks. On Tuesday night I even attended my first fashion show! The aLIVE event in South Lake Union was fantastic -- turn-of-the-century vintage meets locally-designed jewelry meets multi-cultural celebration inspiration. So much was happening.

The best part for me was that half the proceeds of the evening are going to benefit the wonderful refugee resettlement work World Relief Seattle does around the Puget Sound area. It's not only because I work there that I say this of course. I truly believe in what World Relief does helping refugees plug into the community and connect with the people and resources they need to become sustainable.

The other half of the proceeds will go to the YWCA's Dress for Success program. I don't work for them (a girl can only have so many jobs) but I'm a fan. Through personal shopping for professional attire and career development services they are empowering disadvantaged women to thrive in work and life. What's not to love there?

Several refugees displayed their artwork (above) and I really enjoyed hearing from a women who is a refugee from Iran. She was incredibly positive and a great speaker, but said that one of the hardest things about her new life here is that it's difficult for her and her husband to find time to be together. He works the graveyard shift and she works mornings. I think carving out time for relationships is something a lot of us can relate to.

I LOVED these sewn brown paper goodie bags and took quite a few photos for inspiration for when I one day learn to sew properly. The postcard on the left features two refugee sisters from Iraq who are now working at my friend's Feather Hair Extension Company, Plume. It's been a great set-up for the sisters and the business. If you're in the position, hiring refugees to work for you is really a fantastic way to contribute to local resettlement efforts.

The whole she-bang was put on by the multi-talented Carly Holtzinger, a recent graduate of Seattle Pacific University who did the whole thing on a volunteer basis. This girl's got some serious talent and drive and World Relief was incredibly honored to benefit from her vision.

I'm planning to jump back on the blog wagon, so expect some more from me in the coming weeks! I'm headed to a Writing Conference next week and will have plenty to share I'm sure.

Hope you all have a great weekend.



{Top Photo by Mike Fiechtner and the rest ala my iphone}