Okay. We made it to day three and decided to break our fast. Man, that was tough! Honestly, it makes my heart break for addicts of things like drugs and alcohol. If I felt the way I did toward food after only three days of consuming nothing but juice and water, I cannot even fathom how it feels to be addicted to other types of substances.

I can tell you that we plan to do more juice fasts in the future and we saw incredible results in those 72 hours. I lost five pounds, my face cleared up in 48 hours (my chin has been breaking out for months!), my ‘bad food’ cravings have vanished, I have lots of energy and don’t crash in the afternoons, and we actually find ourselves craving fresh fruit/veggie juice throughout the day.

Tonight I am trying my hand at a vegetarian dinner. We’re having 15 Minute Cream Avocado Pasta and corn and bean fritters.  Right now I’m sipping  some juice because my stomach is rumbling and I’m quite hungry, but I’d rather nourish my body with a little juice rather than a quick snack with empty calories.

I’ll let you know how the meal turns out….here’s hoping!

P.S.  Thank you Nicole for sending me over to Oh She Glows!  Fantastic recipes and nutritional info!

~audrey

After watching the documentaries, “Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead” and “Food Matters”, Josh and I decided to embark on a 10-day juice fast.  On a perfect day we consume four 16 oz. servings of juice and lots of water.  The juice is mainly the recipe given in the documentary:

Mean Green Juice

1 bunch kale

4 stalks of celery

1 cucumber

2 granny smith aples

½ a lemon

ginger root

Surprisingly, it’s not bad.  We also bought a few bottles of Green Machine by Naked Juice.  It contains apple, banana, kiwi, mango, broccoli, spinach, spirulina, chlorella, blue green algae, and garlic.  It is actually delicious!

We’re planning on trying a homemade V8 juice for lunch.  We found a good recipe on food.com.  The documentary also inspired us to make sure we’re not taking the easy way out in regards to what we feed our children.  Overall, our kids eat very well.  They’ll eat salad, Jesse and Owen like sushi, they always eat their veggies, and consume at least two servings of raw fruits and veggies each day.  However, as we make a few changes around here in efforts to get our bodies to optimum health, we’re going to shoot for 51% raw on a daily basis even when the fast is over.  Breakfast will likely consist of a smoothie or raw fruit.  This morning the boys had a smoothie made of:

2 cups of spinach

1 banana

1/2 cup blueberries

8 strawberries

This recipe was enough for them to have about 8-10 oz. each.  The best part is, they know the spinach is in there and that it’s very good for them whereas before I would try to hide it.

Lunch will likely be a salad, veggies with homemade hummus, fresh juice, or maybe even another smoothie.  And dinner will be cooked.  I’m already looking forward to trying a chicken marsala recipe I found recently but plan to substitute the chicken for portobello mushrooms.   We’re not aiming for perfection, but we do believe that God created our bodies to be able to heal itself when being nourished properly.

Food Matters was an excellent educational documentary.  I highly encourage you to watch both, but Food Matters really opened our eyes to which foods and vitamins best assist in the healing process of different diseases and ailments.  Watch it!  They’re both “watch now” movies on Netflix if you’re a member.

I started the fast Thursday at lunch and Josh joined me Friday morning.  This afternoon will start day three for me and I’m feeling great.  Yesterday was tough.  I wanted real food and I was very tired in the afternoon.  Thankfully, I haven’t been drinking caffeine for several months so I haven’t had to deal with caffeine withdrawals which I hear are pretty rough.  I was able to take a three hour nap yesterday afternoon and was good as new for the rest of the day.

I’d really like to read the book “Made To Crave” while in the midst of this fast.  I’ve heard it’s excellent and really deals with our addiction to food.  It’s so sad to think about how addicted we are to food.  I even got sad last night when I thought about waking up Saturday morning and not making a big breakfast for my family.  I can practically smell those homemade buttermilk biscuits.  But instead, I woke up, made a large pitcher of our green juice, prepared the boys’ smoothies, and poured Pinesol in all the sinks and toilets.  Time to put this energy to good use!

I look forward to recording our progress throughout the rest of this fast.  I’d be lying if I didn’t tell you that I look very forward to my first meal when it’s over.  I hear days four and five get a lot better.  We’ll see!

~audrey

Children in Augusta will go back to school in two and a half weeks.  Where has the summer gone?  We’ve done a whole lot of nothing and it still seems to have flown by.  Owen will be in pre-k, Jesse will be in second grade, and Joshua will be in third grade.

As I sit here typing, I can hear Jesse in the midst of his guitar lesson in the living room.  His passion for music, worship, and playing his guitar fill me with joy.  Aside from one season of t-ball when Joshua was four, the boys haven’t participated in team sports up to this point.  There just hasn’t been time.  I think one of the worst things families can do today is make themselves too busy.  Too busy to gather around the table to eat dinner together, too busy to talk about everyone’s day, too busy to read aloud a few chapters of a good book before bed.  That said, we’ve decided to let the boys play soccer this fall.  We knew if we signed them up with the Family Y, they’d be on the same team.  The season lasts three months.  I think the teamwork and competition along with being outside for something they truly enjoy will be so good for them.  How appropriate that they’re team is called The Bandits!

I have found myself really “enjoying the moment” lately.  A few weeks ago, the boys and I went up to the lake for a few hours and we were the only ones at this particular beach.  As the boys played in the water, I relaxed into my beach chair, face to the sun, and took a few slow, deep breaths, thanking God for the beauty of His creation that I have the privilege of enjoying on a daily basis.

Just the other day, my friend Teresa and I were planning to take the boys to the lake again and I told her we needed to plan a day trip to the beach.  She said, “Let’s go tomorrow!”  Just like that, I cleaned out the car, ran up to the store at 10:30pm to buy snacks and sunscreen, and packed the beach bag for a long day of fun in the sun.  Joshua and Jesse have only been to the beach once and it was four years ago.  This would be Owen’s first trip to the ocean.  I was so very excited to surprise them Monday morning with our spontaneous change of plans.

We headed out at 8:30am, arrived at Folly Beach just before lunch, played all day, and packed up to head home a little before 7:00pm.

We stopped to get gas and a Chick-fil-a milkshake along with a bathroom break, and arrived back home a little after 10:00pm.  It was absolutely perfect.  I sure hope that the boys look back on our spontaneous trips to the beach with sweet remembrance as they get older.  There’s no place we’d rather be than with each other.  We will surely be making more trips to the ocean in the near future; next time with hubby as well!

I don’t want to miss a single moment of my children growing up.  I look so forward to watching them with their baby sister.  They can hardly wait for the day when she’s snuggled up with us for story time before bed.  Just last night Jesse prayed, “Lord, protect Zoe and send someone to love and comfort her until we can bring her home very soon.”  They pray for her each and every night as we cradle her in our hearts until we can hold her in our arms.

God is so good.  I just can’t say it enough.

~audrey

I haven’t felt like myself lately.  I wake up tired and achy, I’m unmotivated to do the everyday things that once brought me joy and fulfillment, and I haven’t had a period since April.  I guess my hormones could be messed up; or maybe my thyroid levels are off.  I just have’t felt right.  It’s not a feeling of depression, just a severe case of blah. I haven’t even had the energy to dry my hair and put make-up on.  Isn’t that crazy!?  I’ve never felt like this before.  I’ve taken a few pregnancy tests over the past few months just to make sure and they’re all negative.

My mom and aunts have always taught me to try everything natural first and if it doesn’t provide relief, then go to the doctor.  So, I picked up a month’s supply of SAM-e; a natural supplement.  In case you’re not familiar with SAM-e, here is what I found online:

In a nutshell, SAM-e helps other molecules in the brain do their jobs making you feel like your normal self. When SAM-e levels run low, those other molecules can’t do their jobs as effectively, and you can feel out of sorts from a mood standpoint.  SAM-e also plays a critical role in cartilage formation and has been used to treat fibromyalgia patients.

Imagine my surprise when I started to notice a tremendous difference within just 48 hours of starting the supplement.  I got my house clean, and I mean really clean (with a big smile on my face), I wake up with energy, and I’ve lost almost five pounds in the last week.  I think the weight loss has been a result of having more energy.  As I keep myself busy with good things around the house, I don’t eat until I’m really hungry, and even then my body doesn’t seem to be craving the bad things that once made me feel better (temporarily of course).

Yesterday I woke up at 6:00am without an alarm clock.  I made the boys’ breakfast and realized I had a few hours before we were suppose to meet some friends at the pool, so I decided to paint my bathroom.  Just like that, I got out my supplies and had two coats of paint on the walls before 10:30am.

To top it all off, the severe pain I’ve experienced in my left knee for the past several months is almost gone.  The anti-inflammatory that the doctor had given me left me feeling sluggish and drugged.  I stopped taking it the day before I started SAM-e and my knee began hurting again in less than 24 hours.  However, within two days of starting SAM-e, I noticed a significant decrease in my knee pain.  I’m sure the pain will be less and less as I continue to lose weight.   I once read that every pound of weight you lose takes four pounds of pressure off your joints.  I believe it!

Lastly, I’ll update soon on the adoption progress.  Things are moving along at a nice pace now.  We’re getting fingerprinted this week and will begin our home study in the next week or two.  We have many balls on the court at the moment as we try to get several things accomplished simultaneously in order to have our dossier ready to be sent to Immigration and Ethiopia by the time our home study is complete.

I’ll write more on that later.

Happy-super-hot-Wednesday!

~audrey