Our local Whole Foods has a plot at our park district’s community garden. {find a local garden} A few years ago, I admired the gardeners from afar when I lived in the neighborhood. I used to lay on a grassy hill with my (then a puppy) canine companion and admire the gardeners as they tended to their plots while I flipped through the pages of a book.

starting seeds in newspaper cups. the plants then go directly into the garden (in the cup), since the newspaper is compostable. perfect!

Back to Earth Day… Whole Foods volunteers planned to break ground at their garden plot on Monday and I have been excited for the past couple weeks to take Dekker. Fortunately, the weather in our area is on the up and up after our monsoon of a storm last week, and it was a gorgeous day to let him get  dirty!

helping hands giving plantlife a start…

a teaching moment

getting dirty!

children can be so genuine in their interactions. i loved it

lettuce plants…next stop, sunflowers!

I’m so thankful for the volunteers who take the time to do things like this for the community. I hope more and more people take advantage of these opportunities!

Life gets busy. Weather locks us in. Time doesn’t allow for everything to get done. But events like this are important for me and provide opportunities to teach my son about life and health. I looked at him during his late afternoon nap, and smiled at the innocence on his face and dirt under his fingernails. I can’t help but look forward to getting some of my own plants in the ground now that the weather here will finally allow us to do so. Hope you had a healthy Earth Day!

Maybe you can find your own community garden here!

However, I saw the quote above on Instagram (because Instagram is the greatest place to visualize your life!) and have been ruminating on it for weeks. No joke. Weeks! Since I had Dekker over 2 years ago and started on my journey to whole-health, I really have never “gone back.” If there’s a bump in the road and I make a mistake, I learn from it and move forward. I consciously make an effort to learn from the obstacles I have left behind while remaining true to myself. I am grateful that I am now making the time (and have created an amazing opportunity!) in my professional life to further my knowledge and teach others.

Life is going to move forward whether you want it to or not. You can keep up and enjoy it, or you can watch as it passes you by. I am at the place in my life where it is only going to get better and I’ll be running alongside it, gathering others as I go!

Beekman*1802

These guys. Currently living & working on a farm in Sharon Springs, NY. They’re absolutely hilarious and I try to keep up with their adventures as much as possible. Better yet they are genuine, kind, and artsy enough to have gained the attention of an entire community of Beekman-Loving followers.

Faintly The Baby Goat. I told you they’re creative. This lil goat is one of the newest additions to their farm family… and I bet a lot of husbands are now having to hear about how cute having a baby goat would be…

The Beekman Boys cook, author books, create high-end (but affordable) self-pampering products, photograph their lives and community, get crafty, run a farm, and, above all else, have been largely successful in their ventures. But what makes them relatable and oh so enjoyable, is that they have been honest about their personal struggles and have shared the ups & downs of their story with the world.

{only the Beekman Boys could make a llama look like a supermodel}

oh yeah, and they won The Amazing Race without cheating, lying or stealing. They selflessly helped other teams along the way and subsequently gained loyal fans with each step!

see what their farm has to offer & catch up with the goat’s latest antics at Beekman1802

I love coconut flour. I’ve been spending more time lately learning to cook with it and creating more gluten/wheat free foods as opposed to focusing on veganizing my favorite recipes. These definitely need fruit or chocolate chips mixed in with the batter (or topped with something), as they can seem slightly dry/crumbly due to the coconut flour. But they were totally worth making (and sharing!) and it is a great base-recipe that I am confident I can work with!

Ingredients

3 Tbs coconut flour

3 egg whites

1 Tbs greek yogurt (dairy or nondairy)

1/4 cup coconut or almond milk

1/4 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp vanilla extract

pinch or 1/8 tsp of salt

optional for sweetening: a couple drops of stevia, 1-2 Tbs sugar, 1 Tbs honey

mix in blueberries, raspberries, chocolate chips (vegan chocolate chips are still my favorite over dairy-based ones!), black berries…

What to do…

In a mixing bowl, mix all the dry ingredients together and then add the wet ingredients. Mix the batter together until the coconut flour is incorporated (the batter will be a lil fluffy) and cook on a heated griddle. Once they get going, they cook fairly quickly so be careful! Decorate them accordingly and enjoy!

note: I like to make recipes that easily feed myself and my toddler, since we’re the only ones usually home during the day. With a side of fruit this recipe was easily enough for us, but doubling it will make about 8 medium-sized pancakes.

I am sad for the employees who learned roughly two weeks ago that they will be losing their jobs on April 14th at noon.

I am among the many loyal Caribou Fans that will lose a place of welcoming & warmth. In a town of eighty thousand people, having a local coffee shop where everyone knows your name is just unheard of.

Each time the door opens, customers are welcomed by kindhearted smiles and friendly greetings. It only takes a couple visits before your favorite barista can read your mind and have your drink ready before you even order.

It saddens me that these employees who truly enjoy these daily interactions will lose their home away from home. Many of the employees at my local Caribou have worked there so long that I can’t even remember the last time I saw a new-someone-in-training.

Unfortunately, corporate decisions like the one Caribou has made will drastically affect customers, communities, employees and families.

My best wishes to all the wonderful employees who have devoted their time to such a great place. I join the herds of customers who will no longer have that cozy fireplace to warm them as they catch up with friends, study or simply sit and daydream over a cup of coffee or tea.

Save Caribou.

I encourage you to watch them with an open mind and continue to make educated choices that best fit you. I hope you enjoy them as much as we did!

FOOD-RELATED DOCUMENTATRIES

Fat, Sick and Nearly Dead (2010) ~ “100 pounds overweight, loaded up on steroids and suffering from a debilitating autoimmune disease, Joe Cross is at the end of his rope and the end of his hope. In the mirror he saw a 310lb man whose gut was bigger than a beach ball and a path laid out before him that wouldn’t end well- with one foot already in the grave, the other wasn’t far behind…”

Fed Up (2002) ~ “70% of the food we eat contains genetically engineered ingredients and the biotech industry is spending million a year to convince us that this technology is our only hope.”

Food Beware (2008) ~ “For the first time ever, our children are growing up less healthy than we are. As the rate of cancer, infertility and other illnesses linked to environmental factors climbs upward each year, we must ask ourselves: why is this happening?”

Food, Inc. (2008) ~ “An unflattering look inside America’s corporate controlled food industry.”

Food Matters (2008) ~ “Food Matter examines how the food we eat can help or hurt our health. Nutritionists, naturopaths, doctors, and journalists weigh in on topics organic food, food safety, raw foodism, and nutritional therapy.”

Forks Over Knives (2011) ~ “Examines the profound claim that most, if not all, of the degenerative diseases that afflict us can be controlled, or even reversed, by rejecting our present menu of animal-based and processed foods.”

King Corn  (2007) ~ “In King Corn, Ian Cheney and Curt Ellis, best friends from college on the east coast, move to the heartland to learn where their food comes from. With the help of friendly neighbors, genetically modified seeds, and powerful herbicides, they plant and grow a bumper crop of America’s most-productive, most-subsidized grain on one acre of Iowa soil. But when they try to follow their pile of corn into the food system, what they find raises troubling questions about how we eat-and how we farm.”

Vegucated (2010) ~ 3 people make a life-changing decision to adopt a vegan lifestyle for 6 weeks

HEALTH-RELATED DOCUMENTARIES

One Nation, Overweight (2010) ~ ”There is an obesity plague in America that costs the nation as much as $147 billion — and an untold number of lives — every year. Nearly two-thirds of American adults are either overweight or obese. Childhood obesity is triple what it was a generation ago.“

Pink Ribbons, Inc. (2011) ~ “Breast cancer has become the poster child of corporate cause-related marketing campaigns. Countless women and men walk, bike, climb and shop for the cure. Each year, millions of dollars are raised in the name of breast cancer, but where does this money go and what does it actually achieve? Pink Ribbons, Inc. is a feature documentary that shows how the devastating reality of breast cancer, which marketing experts have labeled a “dream cause,” becomes obfuscated by a shiny, pink story of success.”

Cut, Burn, Poison (2010) ~ “A controversial, eye opening, and sometimes heartbreaking documentary that puts the business of cancer treatment (surgery, radiation and chemotherapy) under the microscope.”

Sweetest Misery: A Poisoned World (2004) ~ ”Narrator Cori Brackett had a strange cause-and-effect experience with the diet cokes she was drinking and quickly found herself disabled and diagnosed with MS. Slowly able to walk and speak again, she believes her illness is linked to aspartame. After 7,000 miles, and 25 hours of footage, “Sweet Misery” will reveal one of the most pervasive, insidious forms of corporate negligence since tobacco.”

**********

note: These aren’t “old” videos. They are very much current and relatable. My husband recently said to me, “people are likely to spend more time researching a new television than they do decisions about their own health”…

Happy April! I can feel Spring and she’s right around the corner…And she better bring some warmer weather with her, because here in the Chicagoland area its been miserable and isn’t doing any good for anyone’s mood…

I’ll post some of my April goals this week…There’s been so much happening in my world! Birds chirping, the smell of Spring & the bright, warm-season sun really put me in the mood to start thinking big!

Oh, heck yes! And I’m not kidding. The young, oreo-loving child in me was determined to create something “healthy enough” to indulge in from time to time yet tasty enough to fool my childish tastebuds.

Ingredients

1/2 cup wheat flour

1/2 cup coconut or almond milk (I prefer coconut)

scant 1/4 cup cacao powder or about 3 heaping rounded Tbs

1 Tbs sugar (I haven’t tried them yet with stevia)

1 Tbs coconut oil

1/2 tsp vanilla

1 1/2 tsp baking powder

pinch of salt

What to do…

1. Mix the milk, oil & vanilla in a small bowl. In a large bowl, mix the flour, baking powder, cacao, sugar and salt. Add the liquid mixture to the dry mix and blend. Add a little bit of milk if the batter is too thick. Cook on a griddle or in a large pan like you would any other pancakes. Yum!

Oreo Filling

1 1/2 cup unsweetened coconut flakes

1/4 tsp vanilla

2-3 Tbs coconut milk

2-3 Tbs powdered sugar

Blend the coconut flakes in a food processor until it starts to become coconut butter. Scrape the sides and let it go a little bit longer. Add in the vanilla and sugar. Add the milk slowly. If the mixture is too thin, add a little more powdered sugar. (If you put it in the fridge the mix will harder a little.)

What makes you come alive? Have you ever truly thought about this? Try it…

My husband is missing a sweet tooth. For the several years I have known him, he has never been a dessert person. So if we’re able to have a Valentine’s Dinner together its not likely that dessert will be capping it off. So I’ll be treating myself to this mug cake. It’s quick and simple, and quite indulgent if I do say so myself!

Ingredients

2 Tbs almond butter

1 Tbs cocao powder

1/2 tsp baking powder

1/2 tsp vanilla

3 Tbs water + 1 Tbs flax meal {if you don’t require the recipe to be vegan, you can use 1 egg instead of the water/flax mix}

What To Do

In a large mug whisk together the water and flax meal, and let it sit for 5-10 minutes while you gather the other ingredients. Add in the rest of the ingredients, mix well and place the mug in the microwave for about 1 minute. (I have found 1:10 is the perfect amount of time.) The cake will rise and bubble a bit as it cooks, and fall once you remove it from the microwave. Rarely can I finish the entire thing but I do love every bite!

optional: Before cooking, you can add in nuts, chocolate chips or anything else to make it your own!

{*** Love It! ***}