Blooms To Tide Me Over

Nearly always when I'm in need of something, it magically appears at yard sales or thrift stores, it simply manifests itself, (that's a nod to The Rainbow Family my brother, Jimbo and I knew decades ago down in New Orleans), or someone calls me up, telling me they're getting rid of their sofa, or extra dishes, or what have you.

I've been on hunt for The China Study: Startling Implications For Diet, Weight Loss and Long-Term Health, since last August, thinking I'd read it previously, but unsure.  I've been meaning to ask my BFF, Emily, thinking either I'd read her copy or she'd told me about it.  Or maybe that was the John Robbins' book, Diet For a New America - he of the Baskin-Robbins fame who realized what it, high fat dairy, was doing to our bodies, a very interesting read.

I ordered The China Study via my Amazon Prime that works even with used copies at times, thus free shipping and they're incredibly fast about it, like the next day fast quite often.  I'd not even opened our gate yesterday, loving my get to stay home day, and the mailman unceremoniously just threw the Amazon box over the gate in the rain.  Gee thanks, Dude.

Hooked before I'd finished reading either the preface, the introduction, or the foreward, oh my, y'all might wanna tune me out now, as I'm gonna be quoting the snot out of it.

Oh, heck fire, the cover itself immediately grabbed me with Dr. Dean Ornish's words, "Everyone in the field of nutrition stands on the shoulders of Dr. Campbell, who is one of the giants in the field.  This is one of the most important books about nutrition ever written - reading it may save your life."

He's not exaggerating either.  I'd listened to a Joel Fuhrman podcast yesterday on the dangers of the Atkins diet, not that I'd ever try a meat-eating diet, but I know plenty of people who have done so, have lost a lot of weight, then had their health compromised as the weight came back.  Well, DUH.

I'd retweeted something lately about just trying to be vegan is better than not trying, knowing how easy it can be to slip up.  I've never, not once in nearly 40 years 'cheated' about being vegetarian, but vegan is another step in which there might be unseen ingredients in which I'm unaware.

Thus I'm concentrating on purity - if there's a list of ingredients, then it's not close enough to a whole food for me.  No thanks, I'll make it myself.  I wish I'd gone vegan from the start 40 years ago, I'm finding it much easier than I'd once contemplated and I feel great, visibly more energetic, plus an overall better feeling of well-being.

I should've eliminated dairy decades ago.

Lily and I dumped Fire Hot Pepper Sauce, Nutritional Yeast, cracked black pepper, dried cayenne pepper, and sea salt upon our potatoes that I'd mashed in a separate bowl using rice milk.  We had some vegan sour cream and cheese, both made from soy, but neither of us bothered going to the fridge to get it out.  These were golden, organic melt-in-your-mouth taters that didn't need much dressing up.

My rude teenagers all apologized after school yesterday, restoring the harmony that we've all grown to love lately as we dare to move forward without our every move controlled by the fear of violent outbursts, threats, or the need for deputies to quell the disturbance.

I'd had a long talk with Yolie about it yesterday, as that's what trauma looks like, the recovery not as simple as merely moving forward with the hopes that peace will prevail.  My own trust issues now forever shattered, my feelings about humanity vastly changed, leaving me more reclusive than ever, but certainly happier about it.  The world holds little allure for me.

I could write an entire posts, no many posts, on how former foster children, traumatized children all struggle with that magic age of 18.  Self-sabotage is sadly common, I had a long talk with one yesterday on the brink, hopefully resilient enough to get it together and to believe that she deserves happiness.

"We haven't had mashed potatoes lately," several kids had told me.  This is our potato bar dinner where everyone piles mounds of taters on their plates and selectively adds all the fixings that are full of protein, vitamins and other elements of a good diet.

Using 25 pounds of potatoes to ensure a little bit of leftovers for me today, Lily took a Sharpie to illustrate the vegan container.  As I move forward, she and I are taking over cabinets and shelves in the pantry of our vegan choices, both of us oh so happy in the process.

The teddy bear is the cae for her phone.  Seriously.  That'd annoy the tar out of me, but I'm not 15.

The China Study author, T. Colin Campbell makes it a point to not use either the terms vegan nor vegetarian, but rather explaining his plant-based diet as he details his past 40 years of studies.  His qualifications could fill the rest of this blog post.  Needless to say this Cornell trained biochemist is brilliant.

My own weight creep-up is beginning to subside a bit, I have no explanation, it's not as if my body fought becoming vegan from vegetarian, trying to hang on to a store of fat within, I just don't know, maybe it's my age or a different set point.  My clothes still fit, so that's good enough for me.

My camillas are blooming as is the winter daphne.  A steady rain is falling, the white hyacinths in the front bed are up.  Vanessa had planted those years ago.  All you do is toss 'em in the ground and then get rewarded for years by beautiful fragrant blooms.

And Lily's grades on PowerSchool posted here?  This is the kind of mom I dreamed I'd be.  Instead I faced trauma and violence, theft, deceit, destruction, assaults, and unbelievable aggression.  Yet the four kids I've raised from scratch?  Those that were not traumatized - other than what they saw here - are all bonded, nurtured, exemplary, fine young adults, simply because they were clearly loved from the moment of their birth.  CW, Sarah, Lily, and Jack were protected and nurtured, provided with complete security, something that was unfairly and tragically denied to the other 35 children in their early childhood experiences, and I grieve for what it has cost them.