Source

Today I woke up feeling down.

Most of the time I feel like a girl enjoying the beach.  (The girl in my mind has smaller smoother thighs).  I run, skip, play, and work building sandcastles. Most of the time my life is pleasant and I enjoy the simplicity of my life.  I’m grateful. Occasionally, often without warning, the tide starts to come in wrecking my lovely sandcastles.  I panic, complain, question, and get angry.  I try to build a dam to stop the tide.  It doesn’t work.  I try to outrun the tide but I’m running in lead filled Uggs across sand.  Today rather than panic, fight, or run, I’m choosing to wait and trust.  Trusting my sandcastle is built on a rock and it won’t be washed away.

The tide will recede.  There will still be remnants and I will build again.

Source

I will laugh again.  I will play again.  I will see beauty again.

I will be stronger for it.

Source

Hugs and High Fives,
Jenn

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Yesterday, I was reading the comments on HEAB and came across this article which led me to the Nourished Kitchen blog (which btw I ended up subscribing too). As far as I can tell, The Nourished Kitchen seems to be a blog devoted to traditional food preparation.  A very cool blog, I might add.

However, I found the title of the CNN article, “An Inconvenient Challenge: Eat “Real Rood” For a Month” misleading. It should have said eat “Traditionally Prepared Food for a Month” because if you are using traditional methods of preparation you have no choice but for your food to be real. You can’t sprout Cheerios. Not only was the title of article misleading I feel like it was somewhat irresponsible.  Why?  The majority of Americans are struggling to make some simple changes such as not eating out every night of the week or switching from white to wheat. Then when these Americans read “Eat Real Food”, they scroll down with hope only to find out they must make their own lard and grind their own grains if they want to be healthy.   Suddenly, for some, eating “real food”becomes more than a challenge, it becomes impossible and they give up before they even begin.  I’ve been reading and trying various methods of traditional food preparation for years and even I felt a little overwhelmed reading it. Then again, I have issues.

The CNN article was presented as it if was simply about eating real when, in fact, it was about eating traditionally prepared food. I like traditional foods.  I own Nourishing Traditions by Sally Fallon, the Bible of traditional food preparation.  I do soak my beans. I’ve tried sprouting. I’ve bought raw milk.  Hell, I even bought raw colostrum once which tasted the way baby spit up smells.  BUT I also have canned beans on my shelf and bread that someone else sprouted and baked in my fridge.  I don’t grind my own grain.  I don’t churn my own butter.  I live in 2010 not 1010. I do the BEST I CAN with the resources I have and I refuse to feel guilty anymore.  I get really tired of the media telling me I’m not thin enough, pretty enough, rich enough, and now they are telling me I’m not healthy enough because my cottage cheese came off the shelf. Sure I’d love to make my own yogurts and my own chicken stocks.  I might even pluck a chicken if I had too.  Last summer, I went to the fair to talk to goat breeders about buying a milk goat but I came to the conclusion I like a lot of things in life and milking a goat twice a day doesn’t make the cut. Health is a priority including my mental health.  A few years ago I nearly drove myself (and my family) nuts trying to eat 100% traditionally prepared foods.  When I feel overwhelmed I get depressed and when I get depressed I’m doing good if I cook at all much less figure out what grains I need to sprout on Monday so I can grind flour and bake bread all day on Saturday.

I’ve always said I don’t do moderation well but after reading this article I realize I don’t give myself enough credit.  Okay so I may suck when it comes to eating a handful of M&M’s (which is why I haven’t had one in over two years) but I’ve gotten pretty good at eating healthy and maintaining my sanity.  In one of my ideal worlds, I pick deep red peppers from my garden, get up at dawn to milk my goats, collect eggs from the henhouse, sprout all my grains, make yogurt from my goat’s milk, and my kids delight in my homemade cheeses.  In my other ideal world, I travel the continents, enjoy frequent museum visits, have lunches with friends, spend weeks camping, become a world class martial artist, write screenplays that actually get made, compete in figure competitions, spend hours frolicking at the beach (sans cellulite), build lifelike famous monuments out of Legos with my kids and have enough energy left over at the end of the day to carry on important conversations with my husband. Neither ideal is going to be fully realized and certainly not both of them.  I’ve realized I am my happiest somewhere in the middle.  I spend some time in the kitchen preparing traditional food but I also spend a lot of time outside of it enjoying other gifts in my life and yes…sometimes that means, for time’s sake, I will use canned beans or even (gasp) take a trip through the drive-thru.

This is how I merge REAL food into my REALity to keep my sanity.

How do you make real food a part of your reality?

Hugs and High Fives,
jenn

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I used to be a functional “psycho chick”.  I could hide it well until I got close to someone and I felt like I might be abandoned.  Once, I kept a boy who wanted to break up with me in my car all night long.  Every time he tried to get out of the car I would hurt myself.  After a long and painful night for both of us, I put my foot through the windshield.  Told ya I was crazy… and that was only the beginning of the crazy girl stuff.

This weekend marks 11 years since I met my husband and this is the story of how I went from psycho to princess.

Me.

I used to gel those swirls to my cheeks. Nice.

A funky girl with “issues”.  When I met Brent I was a junior in college studying english lit and theatre.  I was lonely, insecure, and mentally ill but I was also creative, adventurous, and sincere.  I had moved out to California from Indiana at 18 because I wanted to be an actress and was trying to finish college in 3.5 years so I could move to LA or NYC. I should add that although I was crazy, you might doubt it from the outside. I believed in God (the Jesus-y God) and had since I was in 7th grade.

Brent.

A quiet pensive guy who was also a bit lonely.  He had been a drummer in a band and was lucky enough to have toured the country and parts of the world.  When the band broke up he worked in the bookstore at my college, where he had graduated from 4 years earlier.   Although the college was small I had never met him.  A few months prior to our meeting he had gotten a job at a skate park where he was going to make skateboarding videos but ended up designing websites instead.  He too believed in God.

We were neighbors, literally living right next door to each other but didn’t know it.  Yet.

A week before we met.

I was in Scottsdale, AZ, visiting my grandparents.  I had lived in Scottsdale the summer before maxing out credits at the community college and ASU because, like I said, I wanted to graduate early so I could move to the city.   Every time I go to Scottsdale, I visit the church I went to that summer.  On this visit, a boy who I was friends with asked me if I wanted to hang out that night.  I remember sitting in his living room, his perfect living room in his perfect middle class home, imagining what it would be like to be married to him.  It freaked me out.  Not a little.  A lot.  The thought made me feel like someone was locking me away in a dungeon filled with spitting cobras.  I’ve never been the princess-looking-for-the-knight-type of girl.  Too many issues I guess. Late that night after returning to my grandparents house I found myself kneeling on my bed, praying.  This was my prayer, “God if you want me to get married You better make it crystal clear because there is no way I am going to lock myself in a dungeon on my own.  Amen.”

The following weekend.

Have no idea how we got this photo but it's from the night we met. (No I'm not wearing a jean jumper.)

My girlfriend and I were having a party at my house.  We had the best parties.  We would line our long hallway with butcher paper and tack boxes of crayons to the walls so people could draw.  We had muscians playing, belly dancing, poetry readings.  It was great fun.  That night, I was in the kitchen preparing for one of our parties. I was chopping away at the kitchen counter wearing red hair extensions that fell to my waist and homemade beaded  false eyelashes when my friend, Ed, poked his head through my front door.  With him was Brent.  Brent. Brent. Time froze.  Standing on my doorstep was the most beautiful human being I had ever seen.  I loved him that moment.  Maybe not deeply but I loved him and nobody will tell me otherwise.  Ed introduced us and just struck by Cupid’s arrow I mumbled the most clever of clever questions “What do you do?”.  His response, “I’m a filmmaker.”  Gaining my composure, I responded, “Reeeally, well I’m an actress” holding out my hand flirtatiously to be kissed.  True.  We were ridiculous.  That evening we had a magical time dancing and hanging out. I didn’t want the the night to end and I don’t think he did either. Finally, in the wee hours of the morning, he walked back over to his house…next door.  I stayed at mine.

The next evening.

Again showed up on my doorstep.  He was trying to be chivalrous.  I opened my door wearing a black turtle neck and thick black glasses.  ”Jenn?” he said?  Yes, it’s me.  We sat on my couch and talked for hours.  I had to ask what he thought about God.  Although I was crazy and had 5,698,000,000 issues to work through, I knew one thing that a relationship without God wasn’t going to work for me.  So I said, “What do you think about God?”  His answer, “What else is there?”  His simple answer rang deep within me in a place I can’t adequately describe.

A week later.

We were slow dancing and listening to music in his room.  In my head, like a dream, I saw us dancing in front of what felt like the feet of God.  Brent was kissing my head and drops of oil were forming.  The drops of oil were stacking up on top of one another, a glistening tower reaching up to God.  It may sound weird and I suppose it was but it was also beautiful.  So beautiful that I hugged him tightly.  In that moment, I heard these words, “You are holding your husband.”  It wasn’t an audible loud-speaker-booming-bluelight-special voice but I could hear it as certain as I am alive.  ”You are holding your husband.”   It had been two weeks since I was on my knees in Arizona.

The next two months.

No I didn’t tell him about the dream or the voice.  I knew better.  I simply started praying and fasting every Monday and asking for “a sign”.  Over the next few months, the crazy girl began to come out. I found out there was a name for my mental condition, Borderline Personality Disorder. (That’s another post entirely.) I read a book on the disorder and while most people find labels restricting I found freedom.  Finally, I knew there were others who felt like me and while statistically the prognosis looked bleak I was determined to not lose what I had found in Brent.  How did Brent repond?  He continued to love me.  Somethings I’ll never understand.  He loved me through every up and down and honestly during that period of our lives there were more downs than ups.

I "surprised" him by handing 30 Promax bars from his ceiling with dental floss.

We had met at the tail end of February and it was now April.  In a few weeks, I was to leave for a month’s study in Israel.  After Israel, I was planning on spending 10 days in London by myself.  I had been there a few years earlier and fell in love with the city.  I teasingly said he should meet me in London.  The next day he surprised me by saying he had bought a plane ticket.  He also joked about getting married.  That’s it.  That was “my sign”.  I’m easy to please.

Israel

In the Dead Sea.

Israel was one of the most amazing places I have ever been.  I wandered the stones paths of old Jerusalem and swam at dawn in the Sea of Galilee pondering my faith and future. Still the ancient marvels of Petra (in Jordan) and the weighlessness of the Dead Sea could not compare with my thoughts of Brent. I counted the days, the hours, the minutes, until I would be able to feel his embrace again.  While in Israel, a friend and I discussed our thoughts of marriage.  I had not told a soul about the dream or the voice the night we danced in his room.  However I said, if I ever get married I want a single small solitaire to symbolize simplicity.

London (3 months after we met)

I had arrived in London a day before Brent was to arrive. One of the longest nights of my life was that night I spent alone in a bed and breakfast London (in King’s Cross nonetheless) waiting for the sun to rise.  London was what you’d expect from two young adventurous people in love.  We risked our lives by renting a car venturing out into the Cotswolds.  We put waaaaay too many amazing meals on the credit card.  We stayed up late dancing the night away.

We visited museums, famous sights, and cuddled on park benches.  We also got engaged.  One night he slipped away to call my parents to ask for permission. Late that night in a conversation he simply asked sweetly, “Will you marry me?”  I simply said, “Yes.”  It is the best thing I’ve ever said.  We were excited and couldn’t sleep.  Finally, in the early hours of the morning, we hopped on the tube and went down to the Thames river to walk and talk about the wedding we were now planning for December.  The sun was barely up.  Brent bought a muffin from a corner convenience store and we strolled happily along the Thames.  Just as Brent was about to bite into his muffin bird poop fell from the sky landed on it.  He looked at me and exclaimed in disgust, “A bird just shit on my muffin!”  Laughing, he threw it into the Thames.  I learned that day no matter how wonderful things are shit still happens.  It just does.  To everyone.  We can’t control the shit but we can choose our response.

Wrap Up.

Brent ended up buying me a ring in London.  The first one we saw in an little unassuming jewelry store on a random street.  It is a small simple solitaire that I love to this day and have no plans of ever replacing for something bigger.  We said our first vows to each other alone in a small church in the Cotswolds. Because of some choices we made we ended up moving our legal wedding from December to October. I’ll let you fill in the blanks on that one.  We had a small simple lovely wedding.

We used a Lego theme because from the first weeks of our meeting he always said, “We fit together like Legos”.  ”Like Legos” is inscribed inside our wedding bands.

I never made it to LA or NYC like I had dreamed since childhood.  Thinking back on my mental state it was probably for the best and I married my soulmate.  I wouldn’t trade him for all the world.  The bliss of marriage didn’t take away the cloud of mental illness in our life, in fact, in some ways it complicated it.  It would take 5 years of therapy, tears, hard work, perseverance, prayer, and unconditional love until I could confidently call myself healthy.  Even then depression would still creep back into my life from time to time. Once I combined all I had learned from therapy with healthy food, exercise, and faith that God loved me because I am me, I was able to step outside myself.  I was able to begin to see my potential and the potential of others.

The Playlist

Camping alone in the Sequoias last summer.

If you’ve made it this far thank you for taking the time to read the most important story of my life and my most vulnerable post to date.  At this point, you may be wondering what the hell any of this has to do with a playlist.  It does.  When Brent and I met 11 years ago this weekend, music was one of the first things we found we had in common.  Both of us had hundreds of cd’s many of the same ones: Radiohead, The Cure, Depeche Mode, Bjork, New Order, The Velvet Goldmine Soundtrack, The Smiths, Smashing Pumpkins, Led Zepplin, Nirvana, Portishead, Yo La Tango, Air, to name a few.

I love music.  All sorts of music from the more obscure to Britney Spears to Kiss.  (I’m sorry my love.)  I have playlists specifically for lifting, cardio, and stretching.  And others for certain moods or events.  In honor of meeting my soulmate, who has loved me for 11 years on my journey from psycho to princess (He makes me feel like one), I made a playlist based on our common cd collection.

Love Song – The Cure (Possibly the best love song ever.)

The Whole Shebang – Grant Lee Buffalo, Velvet Goldmine Soundtrack

We Carry On – Portis Head (I like this for lifting)

There is a Light That Never Goes Out – The Smiths

Violently Happy – Bjork (Best song title ever!)

It’s No Good  - Depeche Mode (Another good lifting song) 

Street Spirit – Radiohead (Good song for stretching. Thom York’s voice makes me cry…in a good way…seriously.)

True Faith – New Order (Cardio or road tripping.)

Autumn Sweater – Yo La Tengo (All around cool song – good 4 stretching)

Bullet with Butterfly Wings – Smashing Pumpkins -(Not a love song but killer for lifting or hard cardio.)

Sexy Boy – Air (That he is easy cardio song)

You can listen to snippets of the entire playlist here.

Enjoy and thanks for reading.  Have a wonderful weekend.

Hugs & High Fives,
Jenn

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This weekend, I’m officially eight weeks out from the show and I’m feeling really great. Nope, my life is not perfect and everything is not going exactly the way I want it, but despite it all, I feel better than ever! I think most of it has to do with getting regular exercise and eating a quality whole food diet. I really do.

I was thinking about this time of my life last year. Honestly, I was a wreck. Unless you knew me well you might not have known but inside I was hurting and struggling with some severe depression due to some circumstances outside my control and faulty wiring in my brain. The thing with the faulty wiring is that I’ve learned over the years, through some intense therapy and hard work, that I can function really well IF I take care of myself. But this takes some serious discipline, a skill I greatly lack. For some, reason last year I wouldn’t take care of myself. I was eating crap all the time and I started to slack on my exercising. Unfortunately, this is a bad cycle and it’s hard to break, even when your not depressed but I think if your depressed it’s even harder. Because you know going to the gym will help your depression but since your depressed you can’t find the motivation to care. So as the months wore on, I felt worse and worse and eventually quit exercising all together and was eating crap all the time. My depression started to compound with a series of disappointing news. And then a friend who I had confided in used personal information to betray and hurt me. Although, my friend had given plenty of warning signs, the emotional pain sent me deeper into one of my worst bouts of depression. And after a few months I wasn’t sure who I had become. I was angry at my friend.  I was angry with God for not “fixing” my brain.  I was angry at the housing market. (I still am.) I was angry with my body. But most of all I was angry at myself.  One day I tried to pull on a pair of jeans that I had worked really hard to fit into after I had my kids but they wouldn’t button. I had to go out to the Goodwill box and get an old pair of jeans that I was planning on giving away because they were, at one time, too big. This was a very painful moment for me. I know weight shouldn’t matter so much and it’s what’s on the inside that really counts. And I believe that. I REALLY DO but the reality is we live in a culture that values beauty and for most people fat is not considered beautiful. I tried to tell myself that what I looked like didn’t matter. But the truth was, to me, it did.

It was time to get honest with myself and my choices. There were a lot of disappoints and hurt surrounding those months but I had chosen to console myself with food and apathy. I had chosen to abandon who I really was and what I believed was a healthy lifestyle. I was choosing to be angry instead of looking to the root of my problems.  I had to make a choice. Was I going to continue to console my feelings with food and get sadder and fatter or was I going to face my feelings? I decided I would start small and get back to the gym a few times a week. And I started watching my food.  I decided to quit eating sugar. Within days I started to feel better.  A few months later and a few pounds lighter I decided I needed more motivation if I was going to get in the best shape of my life. So I set a date to compete in a figure competition. And now a few months later, a year after one of my worst bouts of depression began, I feel like a new person. I knew cleaning up my diet and working my butt off in the gym would…well…shrink my butt. What I didn’t know was that this would end up being much more than a battle with fat. But it became a fight to dig up some of my old “moxie” that had been buried under hurt, self-doubt and depression.

If you struggle with depression and are reading this, I want you to know that I and many others know what you are going through. And as cliche as it may sound, it’s imperative, if you are not taking care of the basics, i.e., getting regular exercise and eating well, that you start to do so. Don’t wait. Start small. Start today. Most people can improve their depression if they take care of the basics and after you take care of the basics you’ll be amazed at how great you can feel. I’m not a doctor or psychologist by any means but as a fellow person, a friend, who has struggled with depression off and on, I’ve noticed a HUGE correlation with my mental well-being and my food and exercise habits. When I’m taking care of myself my body responds by taking care of me. Not that a healthy diet and exercise will solve EVERYTHING. It won’t but it sure can make a enormous difference.

Wow. I sat down intending to write about how excited I was to see 120 pounds on Evil Scale but realized that what I’m truly excited about is how great I feel due the the healthy lifestyle choices I’ve been committed to the last 6 months.  And I want you to know that no matter where you are on your journey that you’re awesome (yes I still say “awesome”) and that great things are ahead.

Hugs & High Fives
j

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