I received an email from one of our lovely Pure Jeevan family members. Joanne is subscribed to our mailings and she received the ice cream cake recipe I had created for Jim back in January. Well, take a look at what she did with the recipe! It's LOVEly!
Hi Wendi!I took Jim's birthday cake recipe to the next level.
So far, so good, with the mono-meal fasting for Navratri! I mentioned that I'll be sharing an almost diary-like blog entry at the end of each day, to share things with all of you. Well, today's diary entry is quite long. I do share a lot about what was going on with me before the fast, and why I haven't been around much online to connect with all of you.
How's everyone else doing? Are you enjoying your raw food journey? What have you been learning about yourselves, your bodies, and your overall health?
On this Thankful Thursday I am feeling especially thankful for the Internet. Without the Internet I wouldn't be able to learn as much as I've learned about raw foods in such a short period of time. The Internet has connected me with people from all over the world who are also interested in natural health and raw food living. I am part of a larger community, one that would never exist without the Internet.
So, today I am especially thankful for the Internet. What are you thankful for today?
I'm going to be including questions and answers more often on the blog, since we've had a lot of emails from many of you saying you found last week's Q&A helpful and fun to read. I have many questions I've been saving to share with others, and more come in daily. Don't be shy if you have a question about anything that you think I'd possibly be able to help you with. Simply send me an email asking, and I'll reply to you personally. Questions that I feel might have a more general interest may be shared here on the blog (with the questioner being anonymous).
[Please email questions to me, rather than post them here on the blog: WendiDee [at] PureJeevan.com.]
Well, Wendi and our daughter, KDcat, are headed out this evening on a train for their cross-country tour. They didn't seem so sad to leave ... maybe it's because of the bounty they're taking with them! Check it out in the banner above as well as the snapshots below! (I've included a list at the end of many of the products.)
Natural Zing has been Pure Jeevan's favorite online source for all of our raw food supplies. They have been very supportive of Pure Jeevan for over a year, and they continue to amaze us with their love and generosity. You'll be hearing more about Natural Zing during the tour, because they're Wendi and KDcat's official snack sponsors for the trip!
We're here to inspire you...that's our overall focus here at Pure Jeevan. So, when we ask you what you'd like us to do more of, less of, or to consider doing here on the blog ... we take your responses to heart. Of course, it's impossible to please every single person since we all have different personalities and needs. However, we'll always do our best to create a balance in order to inspire as many individuals as possible.
Below are suggestions for what some of you'd like to see happening here on the blog, along with some responses from us. If you have more suggestions, please send them our way anytime. We read everything that comes in and will always give your suggestions serious consideration.
I like this "travelogue" format, so let's continue! Here's Wendi's comments from their adventures in San Luis Obispo, checking out the raw vibes along the CA Central Coast!
After a very active visit in the San Francisco / Berkeley area, we headed down the coast to San Luis Obispo, CA. There's a pretty active raw food meetup there and we were asked to stop in their town to give a talk to their group.
It was a nice drive south, but the sun is a bit brighter than we're used to (especially when driving long distances). When we arrived in the town, we were overcome by the beauty of the place. It's one of the most beautiful places we've seen in California, so far!
Read more: The Friendly, Mellow, Raw Groove of San Luis Obispo
We have something special for today s Makin? It Monday! Remember Terilynn, the brilliant chef behind The Daily Raw Caf , whom we introduced you to not long ago? Well, this weekend she posted a recipe challenge open to anyone willing to participate. We here at Pure Jeevan are always up for an adventure, so thanks for the challenge, Terilynn!
The rules were simple: Use the list of possible ingredients, create a raw vegan food dish, and send pictures and information about your dish to The Daily Raw Caf . Here s the list for the challenge, with the items we didn t have available crossed out:
I want to admit something to all of you: Sometimes I still cry because of how people treated me when I was obese. Because I stuffed all of my "negative" emotions deep inside my entire life, it's going to take some time to fully release them. I'm working on it, however, and making tremendous progress with healing myself on all levels. I'm not telling you these things so you'll feel sorry for me, however. I'm telling you because I am thankful for all the pain I endured. It shaped me (in more ways than just my physical appearance) into the person I am today.
Even though it sounds strange, and somehow wrong to feel this way, I'm thankful that I was obese. I'm thankful for all of the experiences during my life, even the extremely painful, traumatic ones. Maybe if I was a different kind of person I would wish that those things didn't happen to me. However, I am using those experiences in positive ways. They've helped me understand people even better, and to understand myself on a deeper level, as well. When people reach out to me it's not only because I'm an approachable person, it's because they sense that I understand them--and they're right. I DO understand them. I understand you. My experiences, coupled with my gift of empathy, help me relate to you in a way that maybe not everyone else is able to do.
Jim here... Anyone else like a good funky beat ? Who's familiar with Kool & the Gang's 1973 classic, "Jungle Boogie"? Surely a lot of people know that awesome tune. If you do, recall some of the main lyrics: "Get Down Get Down, Get Down Get Down!" That's the tune I want you to keep in mind as you read this post. Hear the drums, the bassline, the electric guitar, the horn section, the voices, the phrasing, the overall dynamics of that distinctive groove. Consider how magically it all comes together.
So, Wendi called me this morning and said, "Why don't you put a blog post up about your new challenge "
Correction: I said "Lenuria" a number of times in this video, but it's actually Lunaria! In any case, we wanted to share some additional description for this plant. Here's a quick paragraph from Wikipedia:
Lunaria is a genus of flowering plants in the family Brassicaceae, native to central and southern Europe. It includes two species, Perennial honesty and Annual honesty. They are widely grown as ornamental plants in gardens, and have become naturalised in many temperate areas away from their native habitat. In the language of flowers, it means Sincerity and Forgetfulness. ...The common name "Honesty" arose in the 16th century, and it may be due to the translucent seed-pods which are like flattened pea-pods and borne on the plant through winter. In South-East Asia, it is called the "Money Plant," and in the United States as "Silver dollars," because its seed pods have the appearance of silver coins.