It was super hard for me to get into only thirty minutes of cleaning. I seem to be more of a four or five hours of focused cleaning kind of girl. I would come home exhausted and just want to relax on the couch with Caryn and drink a glass of wine to slow things down...
Seeing as how I worked through a lot of the holidays and the entire week everyone had off for the snow (yeah, I drove the 3.5 miles to work that first day AND the second day after everything iced over, and only slid maybe 2 times all week. I blame it on having driven the same car for 10 years and knowing it well...) AND I was in pre production all month for this infamous Dolly Parton film in which I'm involved (which, btw pre production can be normal or it can be insane, depending on the crew I'm working for, and despite Cedar's and my best effort, it has been insane, frustrating and at times debilitating.) Regardless, I've been consistently getting at least seven hours of sleep most nights and I wake up exhausted and not ready for the day- so something has to change...
So I've sucked BUT---- Rhu has knocked it out of the park!!! In self defense of the impending cabin fever during the snowpocalypse, she straight up scrubbed the floors on her hands and knees!! She's done so much that needed to be done around the house, I can't start to list it! I'm normally a control freak when it comes to spaces and organization, but I'm trying really hard to just let go and trust Rhu's system, because it needs to be done, and if I don't have time and she can take it on, it's better to just have ANY system than try and force something I don't have time to set up properly... This alone has been a growing moment for me, however little it is...
NEXT MONTH, however has been super intriguing and exciting for us- especially for me! I love, love, love cooking/ preparing/ 'uncooking'/ making anything really at all!! I've found it easier to take snippits of the day to read up on the ins and outs of raw food theory and the raw lifestyle and it's many techniques.
I'm so excited about it, I could easily see it being my next career. Probably because I see cooking (or uncooking as the raw community calls it) as a fun, quick art project that has the best reward- Rhu loves to eat as much as I love to cook! We've pleasantly turned into a happy pair of vegetarian foodies! I love combining flavors and textures and the chopping and mixing and feeling it out instead of following a recipe closely..... it's the easiest way to relax into my intuition without committing hours and hours of a weekend....
I must say right off however, that I don't think that a lot of what I'm reading is either healthy or accurate. There are a LOT of people out there who are extremist and become obsessed with consuming only raw, pure, never heated food. I'm just not sure that I think that becoming obsessed or too serious about anything in life is healthy. I personally feel that ideas and theories should always be fluid and evolving, especially if they're as restrictive as the raw food diet can be! There's nothing wrong with enjoying a veggie burger & fries and a few beers occasionally with good friends to flex other parts of your soul that simply eating healthily can't fulfill.
While we are committed to being as raw as possible for the next thirty days (I'm shooting for 90-95%, allowing for some financial and flavor practicality), neither one of us seem to think that a fully raw diet is possible or practical, and obsessing over the food we eat is prohibitive to enjoying life and the few hours every day that we have free! However, my goal after this month of strict raw food is to eat a 50- 75% raw diet and continue to dehydrate and sprout so that I'm eating more healthy and filling the cravings we both have with healthier options. I'm interested in the heightened energy levels, and am actually counting on it to be able to get up extra early in the morning to prep food for the day!
I'm still at a loss for what to bring everyday for lunch, but I'll have to figure that out soon, as Tuesday is the first all raw day!
It's been SO FUN going to the farmer's market and dehydrating stuff (dehydrator provided by the lovely Sheila Nash, set designer extraordinaire!) and exploring the great blender we have and Mom brought me her juicer, so I've got to figure that out (apparently you can't juice in advance? like the night before? I'm sorta still in the dark about that one)
Either way, I'm looking forward to next months' challenge and hopefully will be able to stick to it- as I'm more often than not in charge of my time or my meal choices....
Here are some pics of the bounty our kitchen holds:
This is our raw nut stash- I'm planning on using these for our protein and iron and fat intake- they're also filling, so they will help us with food craving and hunger in the first four or five days until our taste buds shift to more raw tenancies...
this is the greens basket for the smoothies in the morning,
as well as a few dehydrator trays that have been prepped with unbleached parchment.
The white fabric is what I'm using to stretch over jars for sprouting.
This is raw food central for us!
The dehydrator is full of grapes and cranberries and strawberries,
our favorite sprout mix, super sprout sandwich mix from Sevenanda
and some red Quinoa are sprouting in front,
some dates are soaking and some oat groats are sprouting
for some raw granola that will be made in the morning....
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