Ending. Beginning.

Whoa. I don't even want to check the date on my last blog post. I am sure it was decades ago. It's embarrassing.
Ah but it does take life changing moments to kick one in one's backside to RE-focus, RE-adjust, and get back to living the good life.
For me the life changing moment has been a severe case of sickie. Yes. For the first time ever (besides childbirth) I have been out from work for an entire week. I hate it. I love my job. I love the kids. I love the people I work with. And I hate the backlog that will be waiting for me. Oh sure, I went in for a few hours on Monday but I shouldn't have. I have been laid out on my back with what the doctor thinks is pneumonia. Since he was finally willing to give me antibiotics once I succumbed to fever, I opted out of the chest xray. After all, what would it prove? That I had a viral infection and didn't need the antibiotic after all? I'm not an abuser of the drug, in fact one of the things I heart about my doctor is his reluctance to take the easy way out and administer antibiotics everytime I cry in his office.  My cough is awful, my lower back aches, it feels like someone has been punching me in my ribs, my butt hurts from sitting and lying on it all week and I have a headache from all the coughing. But I digress.
I see the light at the end of the tunnel. I actually got up to clean the mess I've created. And I see the evils of my ways. I am once again making the connection between good nutrition and good health. I feel the pain in my back and ribs from the all the coughing and the weight gain that I was forced to see in the doctor's office. I feel the uncomfortable-ness (is there even a word?) of overstuffing myself when I'm eating NON-plant strong food and the binge-out-ridiculousness (another even a word?) of my food intake. And I'm over it. Oh. Plus I got reinspired through reading this blog. She spoke to me. In a good way. And I'm taking her lead.
Thus the title of today's post: Ending the happy go lucky eat whatevers because I am mostly plant strong mindset  and Beginning to focus on the long term goal (HEALTH) over the short term fix (the triangle of death in food: sugar, salt, & fat).
So here I go again, back to being plant strong but realistic about two things. Well sort of. And I'm just saying this because I want to be upfront and honest. I will not give up coffee (but I'll stick to 1cup a day) and I'll use raw honey as a sweetener (and not just any honey, but honey that was born and raised right down the road from me by a dear friend of mine). And that's that.
But for today I'm going to work on healing with a wonderful healing drink.

 

Let's start with organic ginger. You either love ginger or you hate it. I don't just love ginger. I LOVE ginger. I love it in all forms including raw and in my tea and in my soap and shampoo and juice. Anyway I can have it I want it. Fortunately ginger grows quite well on Hawai'i Island and it's easy to pick up local organic ginger.

 Coconut water is definitely an option but hey if you have it, use it. I love my neighbor. He has coconuts and he shares. Not only did he open up a couple of young coconuts so I could use some coconut water (and believe me, I am not a coconut water buying person...seems like a waste of good money when you have each county in the state cutting down coconuts right and left in all the parks), but he let me have the meat inside, too. I love me some coconut, almost as much as I love ginger. But not quite as much.

 A friend brought me some of his lemons. They were beautiful. I kept a couple of them to eat. I love lemons probably equal to ginger. And here you can see the beautiful honey that I just received from my friend. And it's half gone already. Only a week after she gave me a full jar full. This healing concoction took about 3/4 cup.

I sliced up some ginger, added some honey, squeezed some lemons and let that simmer on the stove for about 20 minutes. Once I could actually taste the ginger (it took a while for the essence to seep into the lemony goodness) I turned off the stove and added the coconut water. And some regular water. I taste tested along the way to make sure it was sweet enough and not too watery. All that was left to do was pour it into jars.
When I buy this stuff in the health food store it is about $5 a jar. So I figure I got about $20 worth of healthy goodness right here and I made it for $2.00 (cost of ginger), thanks to the generosity of friends and friends are priceless. Thanks Deb, Lynol, and Wally.
I'm on my way. December 1=plant strong. I'm committing to 6 weeks for now. That'll take me to January 11, 2013.
Are you with me?