Gimme Some Skin!

For about five years I've had this strange rash on my face.  It just appeared out of nowhere, really.  There was no drastic change in my diet or level of activity.  Strange.  I have spent a lot of time researching skin rashes online, deducting and re-incorporating parts of my regular daily routine.  I've tried countless products, some natural, some not.  Nothing seems to match up, nothing seems to have worked.  The one thing I have not done is consult a dermatologist, primarily because I do not want to get on the pharmaceutical bandwagon.  There must be an all-natural, home remedy for these peskly little red dots.

Recently, however, I have noticed tremendous improvement.  My husband has noticed, too.  I'm sure if I were to just take a little pill, all would be clear.  But would that really be the cure, or would it render me dependent on the little pill in order to have clear skin?  Hmm.  I've chosen instead to use a variety of natural methods that improve my overall health in addition to my skin.  Here they are:

1. Stop putting stuff on my face.  Seriously.  Many cosmetics and personal care products contain abundant unnatural ingredients that damage your skin, but may also create other serious side-effects.  I have not worn liquid makeup regularly for more than a decade.  But I have used a lot of cleansers, scrubs, toners, masks and moisturizers -- even those labeled "natural"; many contain carcinogens.  Check the safety of your favorite products here: http://www.safecosmetics.org/ 
2. Make your own beauty products!  Grind oatmeal and mix with honey for a sweet and truly natural facial scrub.  Combine glycerine and drops of lavender, among other ingredients, for a non-sticky, non-greasy body moisturizer that really works.  Better Basics for the Home by Annie Berthold Bond is a must-have for any Green Queen or Queen-to-Be.  Packed with plentiful recipes for concoctions, decoctions, etc., Better Basics is a great mentor for anyone wanting to rid her home of potentially harmful chemicals. 
3. I remove mascara and moisturize my eye area with virgin, first cold-pressed olive oil.  A little dab will do ya.
4. I started wearing waterproof mascara and Burt's Bees tinted lip moisturizer to take attention away from my rash.  (LOL.)
5. Instead of scrubbing my face violently, trying to erase the rash, I gently splash my face with water a couple of times throughout the day.  I leave the exfoliating for bedtime so my skin may recuperate while I sleep.
6. Daily I drink a "skin juice" made with two cucumbers, one carrot, one-half red bell pepper, and one small apple.
7. I drink at least one green smoothie per day.  My favorite is watermelon and spinach.  Spinach is a superfood!  Not only does it benefit my skin, it boosts energy and alleviates menstrual cramps.  Also, it's a great source of PROTEIN and CALCIUM, a natural combination rarely found in foods.
8. Fruit, fruit, fruit.  I eat a LOT of fresh fruit everyday.  Some in its whole form, some blended with other fresh fruit, and some juiced with greens.  The more whole foods you consume, the better your overall health.  Better for the planet's health, too.
9. Cut back on alcohol intake.  Since New Year's Eve I've had a whopping total of five drinks.  Multiple benefits.
10. Reduce caffeine consumption.  Since I only drink one cup daily, two if I'm really really sleepy, I wasn't sure this would help.  However, I'm wondering if I might be allergic to the chicory in my beloved Cafe du Monde coffee.  Tomorrow I will begin drinking "regular" coffee for a couple of weeks to test that theory.  It might be caffeine, period, that I have to eliminate.  Grrrrrrr.
11. Exercise more.  I'm running more, and I make sure I splash my face with water after I run.  This should rinse away any toxins I've eliminated through sweat.
12. Rest.  I'm still working on this...I get so much more done at night after everyone's in bed!  And then I can spend my day learning and playing with Sage instead of cleaning, blah blah blah.  There must be a compromise...
13. Be happy.  This I have achieved!  I live somewhere I want to live, I keep my life as simple as possible, and I have finally learned not to obsess about things out of my control.  I'm content to focus on my life and all the wonderful people and things in it, versus lamenting people or things I've lost...or have not yet found.  But I do still dream about being totally debt-free...sigh.
14. Make time for loved ones.  I call my friends and family much more frequently than I used to.  Keeping up with them and their lives, and letting them know about mine, is good for our souls.  Humans need to feel they belong...somewhere.
15. Keep life simple.  Do what you love.  Know what is truly important.  Although your priorities may differ from mine, they are valid.  They are what make you YOU.  Embrace you...and celebrate the differences between people.  Smile.  Often.

Back in the Saddle

For the past week we have been spinning our creative web(site) around here.  The new and unquestionably improved website will be up soon.  As in days, not weeks or months.  So far, it's gorgeous.  I can't wait to upload it!

Since I've been in my zone with NativeDave.com stuff, I have neglected my personal blog.  I'm thisclose to being finished with the other so I can return with new and unquestionably improved perspectives on life.

Until then...enjoy the solace of winter, y'all.  The newness, the emergence of spring is near.  Giddyup.

More and more

This week on Facebook people are posting pics of themselves and their significant others.  They are also telling how long they have been together.  I changed my profile pic to an old one taken of David and me in 1992, the year we began dating.  In July we will celebrate 18 years together; but in April we will celebrate our 9th wedding anniversary.  Both sound like a really long time, and when I look at that pic I remember distinctly the night it was taken.  It was my 23rd birthday, and David, April and Scott had planned a huge surprise party for me.  That was the best birthday party I ever had.

I keep looking at that photo.  For some reason I'm intrigued about that moment being captured before all these other things happened.  That was before we bicycled the Yucatan Peninsula for a week.  Before we rode our bikes from San Antonio to Corpus Christi.  We crossed into Mexico on foot and backpacked the eastern-half of that country for two months.  We had not yet stood in Times Square on New Year's Eve, nor driven across the US to move to Seattle, a place we had never before visited.  We quickly found jobs and a cool apartment, and lived there for seven months.  That pic was taken before we went back to college and graduated; before we formed NativeDave.com; before we lived in a camper on the beach in Florida for a year.  That was before we spent many weekends camping on the beach on N. Padre Island, dreaming about someday living there.  At the time that pic was taken, we had not yet discussed marriage or children.  It would be almost nine years before we would tie the knot, and a whopping FIFTEEN before our little girl would be born.  (Dang!) 

Before that pic was taken, however, we had developed a great friendship over five years.  We had taken vacations together, had spent most every weekend together with our friends.  Although we had only been together romantically a few months, we were not strangers.  Not long after celebrating one year together we began living together.  We had fallen in love and were committed to sharing our journey.

Our journey has taken us many places over the years.  There have been thrilling joys and agonizing sorrows -- but overwhelmingly, we have had mostly joys.  I feel fortunate and grateful, and I'm looking forward to many more years, many more joys, many more adventures on this shared journey.

I love you, David.  More and more every day...

Dream On

A few days ago one of my Facebook friends from high school updated her status with a comment about realizing she has to settle for her life the way it is, that certain things are just not going to happen for her.  Comments made by others encouraged her to just accept that this is as good as it gets.  Now, typically I'm a lurker.  I use Facebook to market NativeDave.com, but in my personal realm I mostly use it to keep connected with family and close friends.  I upload a lot of pics.  Sure, everything I post is visible to my more distant friends and acquaintances, too.  And I look through their pics and posts, but seldom comment.  Back to the woman posting about it being time for her to "settle"...

I had to comment, I just had to.  If you see a car accident happen, you can't just keep on driving.  You owe it to those people to at least call 911.  Better yet, pull over, get out, and offer help until emergency pros arrive.  You see, Miss It's Time to Settle is not the settling type.  She is a talented photographer, and her posts on Facebook are smart, sometimes sassy, but always intuitive.  Entertaining and sometimes educational.  She is a true artist, and artists trust their instincts, their dreams.  They takes leaps of faith every time they create.  Settling is for people who are not artists, who don't feel their hearts, minds and souls will erupt if they don't at least try to share their perspective with the world.  It isn't all that important if The World, even one person, really "gets" your art.  The fact that you put it out there at all, that you took the risk, is satisfying enough...most of the time.

Art is dreams made tangible.  If an artist stops dreaming -- because she stops believing in her dreams or loses inspiration -- she becomes stagnant.  If she becomes stagnant and stops creating, she stops living.  She might have a pulse but she is definitely not living.  I couldn't lose this patient on the table; I had to act.  I had to remind my Facebook friend about the importance of dreams.  Being thankful for the life you have, even if it isn't exactly what you had hoped for, is very very different from "settling."  Settling connotes giving up, an exasperation with the rate at which Life unfurls.  You can be thankful and still strive toward your dreams.  But don't settle, don't ever ever give up on your dreams.  You would be giving up on yourself...on Life.

In a later post this same woman announced she was considering entering a photo contest.  I encouraged her to do it.  It doesn't matter how your entries are judged, I coaxed.  Just submit and see what happens.  Worse case, you will get no response.  But you will never know until you try, until you take that leap of faith.

Fine advice.  So why don't I take it?  It's so easy for me to see other people's path clearly, and to nurture them to follow it.  It has taken me a long time to hop on my own trail.  I knew where it was all along -- I could see it.  Always, I have followed it, but from the other side of the greenbelt.  Until now, I always found what I thought were valid reasons (they weren't) to postpone my journey.  I'm on the path now, that's all that matters.  Life's mysteries are unfurling as intended, and I'm dreaming more vividly.  I trust them, I'm revving up for the next leap of faith.  Now I can nurture others' dreams without sacrificing my own.  My inner artist is emerging in every aspect of my life, and I'm listening closely to her.  She has a lot to say, a lot of her soul to share with the world.

That seemed like a sensible ending to this post...until I looked down and noticed I'm wearing pajamas that read "Dream On."  The irony, oh the irony...

Feeling the need...

to edit.

Will go back and correct some spelling and grammatical mistakes.  Sometimes I edit before I post, but a couple of times I've typed until my fingers nearly fell off, and published without editing.  Read through the past week or so and you will figure out which is which.  LOL.

My Simplicity

Yesterday I wrote about simplicity starting with Me.  Of course I meant MY simplicity starts with Me, just as Yours begins with You.  My path will not be the same as yours, but I hope it can inspire you.  I've mentioned the book Simple Abundance a few times.  Its daily meditations keep me focused so that I may discover my authentic self and the life I am intended to live.  The exercises, too, reinforce my course.  Using your hands to create a tangible version of your inner, authentic self, stamps on your memory a snapshot of your soul.  This book is essential for Any Woman or Creative Man.

Your path will begin with "gratitude."  After evaluating yourself -- who you are, what you like, etc. -- you are asked to list up to five things you are grateful for today.  I started doing this in November 2009, about a month before I received the Simple Abundance book as a birthday gift.  My daily gratitude list has been key to coping with external stresses in my life.  The list shifts my focus from the negative influences I can't control to the positive aspects I can appreciate.  This mood and tone of my mind, then, begins each day with thankfulness and optimism.  Not a bad way to kick off the morning, eh?

It isn't enough for me to simply feel grateful.  I want to share my gratitude with others.  Recently I thanked my parents for moving us to Plano during my 6th-grade year.  At the time, I was miserable because I had left all that was familiar to me: friends, neighborhood, school, dance studio.  All people and places I had always known.  We moved to a place that was different in every way from what I had always known.  It was a difficult place to fit in, and for nearly three years I begged them to move us back "home."  Eventually, though, I found my niche.  Today I have a massive network of friends from childhood, friends from work, and scores of friends and acquaintances I have made through building NativeDave.com.  Growing up in a suburb renown for its intensity and pressure on students to excel has offered opportunities not available to me in Nashville.  Although initially I resisted Plano, as an adult I am grateful I survived it.  Living there inspired me to aim high, to set impossible goals, and to pursue them despite any obstacles that might appear on my path.  I will keep striving for my version of success.  Thank you, Mom and Dad.  I love you both very much.

Simplicity starts with Me

So many thoughts compete for my attention when I run.  Imagine what the floor of the New York Stock Exchange must sound like.  That's sort-of what goes on in my brain while my legs force my body forward.

Today I thought about my brief tryst with raw food and realized I was (and many ways, still am) so excited about the concept because it seems it would simplify mealtimes for us.  In fact, it seems that I'm always looking for ways to "simplify, simplify", as Thoreau writes.  For a very long time now I have removed clutter from my home and mind...but I still have a long way to go.  We all do.  Well, almost all of us do.  I get it and I think I can help others, too.  Maybe that's my next career: simplicity coach.

The most important first step in pursuing simplicity is to take an honest look at yourself.  A thorough examination, an assessment of who you are, what you do, what you like and what you wish you could change about yourself.  There are no right or wrong answers, only honest ones.  Sounds easy, right?  For most of us, the truth hurts.  We might not be all that thrilled to be the age that we are, or living in this house or married to that person.  We might wish we had waited to have children, or had them sooner.  We might be afraid of spiders or Terrorists or 2012.  So many pieces of the truth pie, and they fit together perfectly to make up one unique recipe: YOU.

I thought I knew myself.  I guess I always have, but until a few days ago, there were still some core truths about me I had not discovered.  I was writing in my personal journal and it happened...a personal epiphany...the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth about ME.  Everything came together on paper like a mental thunderclap -- I was free!  Liberated from my own self-imposed limitations.  The words flowed, effortlessly.  I know, cliche.  But that's exactly the way it happened.  From my brain down my arm and launching from my pen were all the answers to all my questions about Me.  Everything, good and bad.  I felt lighter and happier than ever.

And then a really strange thing happened...the glow of absolute confidence.  All of my memories filed themselves away in proper order in the past.  My recent "reliving" of my personal history gave me insight and perspective, and an abundant gratitude for the opportunity to choose my own path.  To choose the path that led me to Today.  By putting away the past I was able to free up space in my soul to allow my dreams to grow.  Dreams for the future -- but not so much room that I forget to enjoy today.

Today is all I have.  I can't change the past nor predict the future; all I can do, really, is relish Today.  The simple pleasures that Today offers me each day.  Sage's giggle, her quirky sense of humor.  Time spent coloring or working on other art projects with her.  Writing in my journal.  Listening to 70s music (is that "Convoy" I hear???) while we play, or classical while I write, or folk or jazz or blues or Southern Rock while I run.  Listening to the birds as they fly over our house from the beach en route to the Laguna Madre for evening feedings.  Petting my dog Folsom.  Each day brings a flood of magical moments, simple truths about Life.  If I'm keen to pay attention, higher powers are offering them to me.

Today the waves nudged the dunes, completely erasing the beach and leaving me nowhere to run but the deep, soft dunes.  Um, really difficult to say the least.  I smiled at the waves, as if I were thanking them for presenting me with this challenge.  My feet sunk with every step but I trudged along.  Finally I reached the park road toward the pier and turned off.  I had to leap over a small but steady stream of water rushing from the dune back toward the Gulf; my toes got only a little wet.  Since there was no beach to run on, I took a rare detour along the road that runs behind the dunes.  On my iPod I listened to Miles Davis' Kind of Blue -- my favorite soundtrack for drizzly days.  I couldn't find my stopwatch today so I have no idea how fast I ran my route today.  Funny, so very funny.  It wasn't that long ago that these little diversions from my charted path would stress me out.  But today...I embraced the changes.  Much can be learned by taking a different path home.

A few days ago I looked in the mirror and saw Me as I really am.  I put away my memories, for now.  Today I celebrated today, simply.  Tomorrow -- who knows what tomorrow will be?  Not I.  I do know, however, that I will be ready for whatever gifts it presents me.  And one of these tomorrows I will discover the next step I should take toward achieving simplicity.  Something outside of myself.

50% is fine

What was I thinking?  I'm not ready for a 100% raw.  Not now, maybe never.  Some of the dishes I tried were fabulous, some were bland.  Or worse.  The experience was not a total loss, however.  I learned a lot, such as:

1. People wanting to lose a lot of weight but not wanting to exercise, or are unable to exercise, will lose a lot of weight, fast, eating a 100% raw food diet.
2. People suffering from diseases from the more serious diabetes or multiple sclerosis to the more minor skin blemishes will notice an easing of their symptoms by eating 100% raw.  In many cases, they can cure themselves entirely of these maladies in just weeks.
3. I don't need to lose any weight nor do I need to cure myself of any diseases. 
4. I'm not willing to give up coffee or my one cooked meal at night. 
5. I'm comfortable eating a 50-75% raw diet.
6. I'm not sedentary.  I run and really enjoy it.

I've suspended my 100% raw experiment.  Recently I wrote about my uncertainty about the 30-day challenge.  I think it's a great thing, it's just not right for me.  Today.  I could not find a single reason I should go 100% so I'm sticking with my "raw all day" approach.  And I'm fine with that.

Day Two of Raw: Clear Ideas

Yesterday went fine except that I was cold all day -- chilled, really -- and had a major headache.  Couldn't tell if it was from lack of sleep or lack of coffee.  Either way, I was in pain.  Too much pain to talk on the phone, actually.  I woke up this morning with only slight residual pain.  And gave in to the urge for coffee...:)

Let me backtrack for a moment.  Call me a quitter but I'm just not ready, may never be ready, to give up coffee.  Really, why should I?  I only drink about a cup a day, two on a particularly groggy day.

I woke up from a dream that made me sort-of angry.  Details are boring, really, so I'll just describe the gist.  A large group of people were being unfairly critical of me.  At first, I listened to their brazen comments to glean some constructive elements.  Eventually, I realized they were just being mean.  I didn't run away and hide so I could cry.  I didn't get falsely angry and storm out, never to return.  I listened, but then I stood up to defend myself.  Calmly and logically, I poked holes in their claims.  But nobody was interested in logic, or reaching a compromise.  They just wanted a whipping girl to absorb all their anger and discontentment with their own lives. 

As I lay in bed analyzing my dream, I realized this was an important moment.  I had learned something about myself and the way I interact with others.  I had learned to have confidence in myself even when others seek to beat me down.  This will come in handy as I continue on my writing path.

Then I started thinking about the raw challenge.  My head throbbing, I decided I would have coffee today, after all.  Maybe again tomorrow.  Hell, I might never give it up.  Clearly, the 30-day challenge is great for people wanting (and needing) to make drastic changes in their lifestyle.  Overweight or suffering from debilitating disease, these folks benefit from a crash course in detoxification.  But someone like me, who really has no weight to lose and is generally healthy?  I already eat raw all day -- why give up my one cooked meal?  Or coffee?  What will I gain from this experience, really?

No answers yet, just questions.  And coffee.  Definitely coffee.

Raw Day One: Ready, Steady, GO

Today we began our 30 days of raw and living foods program.  When I say "we", I mean my husband and me, not our daughter.  She eats plenty of fresh fruit and raw nuts, and drinks smoothies and fresh juices daily.  But she eats a cooked meal at night, and I will continue her diet as-is...at least for now.  I had thought I would miss my morning coffee but I was satisfied with a substitute: a juice concoction made with apple, carrot and ginger root.  Great "alive" pick-me-up.  The only thing missing, really, was the heat.  Today it's rainy and cold -- perfect day for coffee and Miles Davis.  It is lunchtime and I am beginning to feel a bit hungry.  Maybe some raw fettucini alfredo?  I tried it last night...AMAZING.  The noodles are shredded zucchini and summer squash.  The sauce consists of a variety of raw (yes, unsalted and unroasted) nuts, garlic, lemon, water and Bragg's Liquid Aminos.  So far, we have eaten (or drunk, depending on how you look at it ;-):

2 glasses smoothie (4 bananas, 1/2 c. blueberries, 2 c. water, 2 c. ice, blended on high until smooth)
1 glass carrot, apple and ginger root juice
2 glasses cucumber, red bell pepper, carrot and apple juice
handful of blueberries
1/2 pear

Ordinarily I would also have a plate of strawberries, more blueberries, and a bowl of grapes.  I'm a grazer by nature, so throughout the morning little nibbles here and there add up.  For that reason alone I have to keep fresh fruit, cleaned and plated, within reach. 

So far, today feels pretty status quo.  I feel groggy, but that is probably due to the weather and lack of sleep.  Tomorrow, after a good night's rest, I should feel much better.  Maybe I'll go take a nap with Sage...