TimePeace - Musings by Cyndi

Saturday, September 4, 2021 Me this morning. Three weeks have passed since beginning the Standard Process Purification cleanse. Questions such as “How do I feel?”, “What do I notice?”, “Was it worth it?”, “Would I do it again?” and "Moving forward" are all questions to be reflected upon.  I don’t know about you, but many generations just lived, ate seasonally, and didn’t pay much attention to the catchall words that we have today such as “organic” and “sustainable eating.” They already were!!!! Farmers worked hard, still do. Today our society has changed and many of us are stuck behind desks and are on the run so much that the food we eat and unhealthy habits we have formed have been problematic to our overall health, posture, spinal health, obesity, amongst others. There is more disease than ever before in this country, much which has been our own doing, but even more so, the culture and environmental factors around us contribute to dis-ease and our unnecessary stressful liv...

Today is officially the last day of the Purification although there will be still supplements left that I will continue to take until they’re gone. I will also continue watching the problem foods like gluten and sugar (even though most of my sugar has been come from local honey, unsulfured blackstrap molasses and pure maple syrup). Do I think I failed because I added a couple of my important foods back this week? For me the answer is no, but I’ll go into it more on my closing blog tomorrow. Weighed in this morning. 157.6# That is approximately a 4.5# weight loss in 3-weeks. I’m OK with that. Smoothie: 2T SP Pro Complete, 2T SP Whey Pro Complete, 1 cup Califia coconut milk, 3T shredded unsweetened coconut, 1 banana. Breakfast: 1 soft boiled farm fresh egg (before starting the purification are used to have two a day). Cooked green string beans with Italian butter. Take green string beans. While we think of them as a vegetable, I guess they’re considered part of the legume family. I didn’...

Such a lovely day with a good break from the normal work day. Hope to make this a really short posting this evening as it’s now 8:50 PM. Haha. Can’t speak in 100 words or less, what makes me think that I will be able to blog in 100 words or less. There is that old saying about being a slave to your home. In our case it is being a slave to the kitchen! There are days when it is just busy in a good way and decisions need to be made in order to let everything unfold smoothly. So this morning, after exercise, Standard  Process supplements and smoothie, it was time for breakfast. We actually had a little extra time as we did not need to make lunch. Bill‘s nephew was in town so we were going to take an extended lunch this afternoon and go out. Smoothie: 2T SP Pro Complete, 2T Whey Pro Complete, 1 cup Califia coconut milk, peach, 1T hemp hearts, fresh basil leaves. So I cooked up a couple of small sweet potatoes and steamed some green beans for breakfast added some Italian butter for the ...

A new day, a new month! September 1st. I really like the ring of that! 🍂 While I had a really good night sleep (only up once to use bathroom which is common and I typically always fall right back to sleep), I was glad I fell asleep shortly after getting into bed. One of the areas I noted was that this Purification has not helped in the sleep department. Since we don’t get home until after 5:30 (the work days are long) we don’t sit down to supper until at least 6:30. Then we need to wait at least 2 hours to go to bed which 9 pm works for us, especially when the goal is to be up by 4:30. Although I would like to be up by 4:15. However since Sunday night I’ve had to take melatonin as I just get into bed and then become awake and lie there. Just warmed not hot fresh milk sprinkle with nutmeg does the trick. I caved last night I have milk at. 8 o’clock no problem falling asleep as I typically do before yes. Well back to meals for the day! It was a whirlwind of a day too. Smoothie: 2T SP Pr...

A wicked busy day. I’m exhausted. Only walked 2 1/2 miles in today outside, and probably couple of more up and down the hall at work, from my office to the bathroom, or from my office is the copy machine. My back has been achy all day. SI joint Needs to be adjusted badly. I realize that a lot of what I’ve been doing will be incorporated into a new norm, but I’m looking forward to bringing back in some of my old norm as well. Three more days. Smoothie: 2T SP Pro Complete, 1/2 mango, 1 cup Califia coconut milk. Breakfast: 5 large roasted asparagus and 3oz Lake Michigan lake trout. Lunch: 1 cup Red lentil, butternut squash curried soup made with coconut milk, sautéed onions. Also enjoyed a salad of mixed greens, one small peach cut into chunks, half an avocado and a half cup of cucumber. Dinner: Italian pepper stuffed with quinoa and sautéed shallot wit fresh basil. Sauce was Organico Bello (Whole 30 approved), sugar free, very low sodium.  This one is a keeper. Quinoa and tomato sauc...

While the morning went smooth, it was that kind of Monday where a person doesn’t seem to have time to breathe, let alone eat! My smoothie today was simple: 2T SP Pro Complete, Califia coconut milk, 1/4 mango, small knob ginger and a peach. For breakfast I steamed brussel sprouts and poached a piece of Lake Michigan lake trout. I cut it into 3 slices about 3oz each. Bill and I both had it with the sprouts. The other 3rd will be for the morning while Bill has eggs. Lunch was a salad with tatsoi, some cucumber, orange cherry tomato, a tablespoon of chopped fresh dates and a 1/4 cup of pulled chicken I roasted yesterday. I tried something different and roasted it with Indian spices rubbed into it. Also had a cup of Halwa soup, which wasn’t originally supposed to be soup at all. Halwa Is an Indian dessert also known as carrot pudding. However it did not thicken as I did not use milk or sugar. Instead I used coconut milk, the drinking kind, and no sugar. It’s still tasted really good so I us...

My husband remarked how disciplined I have been these past two weeks, not only in staying the course, but also by blogging it.  Truthfully, by blogging this I have put aside working on my photography (all food pictures I've posted are cell phone pictures). I have reading to catch up on as well as a sewing project!  Only five more days, which I have already decided will be a take-away blog. Food prep is beginning to get weary, but I think I already mentioned in a previous post, food prep has been more weary for  along time, even prior to this 21-day purification!  This does feel like more work though as our morning routine has been thrown off course with fixing two breakfast.  I look forward to sitting down next Saturday with my veggies and pasture eggs!!  I would think that since we get our eggs and milk from a farm that I shouldn't have to give them up. I've said that before too. Todays' post is for two days.  Oh well!   Started mo...

 Today has been a really good day!   Every breath we draw is a gift of God's love; every moment of existence is a grace. ~Thomas Merton Slept in this morning, and arose feeling rested. Decided to do a weigh in. 158. It felt good to see it under 160.  As I said on Day 1 - I don't want to lose a truckload of weight.  It is not healthy to lose alot of weight in such a short period of time.  Not only do you lose it from your fat reserves, and even muscle if not exercising, but also from your bones, especially if nutrients are not kept in check! So I took my Standard Process supplements, scanned the refrigerator, made a smoothie and we went for a 2.5 mile walk.  The walk was a bit tiring as the dew point at 8 a.m. had bordered at  70°F, and  dew point readings above 70°F  are oppressive and even dangerous. Anyway, back to the smoothie.  Since the amount of  food in the house was at the minimum (today & tomorrow shoppin...

Sometimes I wonder if we are the only ones who feel the craziness of the morning. Life would be simpler if we woke say 90 minutes before work, groomed, then grabbed a bowl of cereal and out the door. However, if we did that, I wouldn’t be writing a blog that I hope could be helpful to someone else someday. This week has been such a run-on sentence. I have to ask myself “do I feel better than I did before I started this 13 days ago?” Yes and No. I think I have more energy in the morning if I get a good night sleep, yet, once I have my morning walk before work (between 2 and 2.5 miles), I still often feel drained. Perhaps it is the sultry August mornings that are exhausting. I still have sinus issues that usually are seasonal, but the seasonal issue came back in the spring of 2020 and is still here.  So I kept it simple this morning, the best that I could do, maintained all the supplements, and for the morning smoothie I just threw in SP Complete, beets, carrots, cilantro, ginger and...

Another good night sleep, even though I do remember it storming, I was up once, and I had a very lucid dream before my 4:30 alarm.  Same routine just a different day. I made a double batch of smoothie with only the SP Complete (no need for the additional Whey Pro since I’m now eating fish). To the 2T SP Complete, I added a cup of coconut milk, fresh figs, 1/4 cup fresh dates (that I prepared last night - soaked and pitted) and a 1/4 cup of blueberries (this amount was for 1 smoothie). For breakfast I sautéed two large cloves of garlic, and fresh arugula from farmers market in my cast-iron skillet. This actually is part of a very common breakfast for us as we eat vegetables most mornings. I made enough for two, and Bill had his soft boiled eggs, and I reheated in the skillet the rest of the lake trout from yesterday. Lunch was an easy preparation. Chopped romaine lettuce, topped with seeded cucumber, peaches and chopped basil. The dressing was just extra-virgin olive oil. For lunche...

With 8-hours of sleep last night, not waking once during the middle of the night, the morning is off to a good start. A good night’s sleep also means more energy and I didn’t have to drag myself to my mat. After a decent work out it was time for breakfast and lunch preparation. Because it was also Day 11, that meant that I could start at adding wild fish or organic chicken (or wild game) into my meal plan. So the routine has been laid here, SP supplements, shake, food, and out the door. This morning I created a simple fig shake. All the same Standard Process ingredients, and doubling the batch so I can bring one to work. The only difference in what I used for liquid is that instead of the Califia coconut milk, are used SO Coconut milk. I think I prefer the Califia. To make clean up easy I lined a cookie sheet with parchment paper and laid out our asparagus and roasted them in the oven. I then roasted a 6 ounce piece of Lake Superior lake trout. While it is suggested that the fish only ...

“Monday, Monday” … “ just another manic Monday“, OH YES!!! It took me quite awhile to fall asleep last night. Because we get up so early we try to be in bed by 9p most nights, 9:30p at the latest, especially when the alarm goes off at 4:30a. But for no known reason, falling asleep easily on a Sunday night has its challenges. I’ve read that “Sunday insomnia” is a real thing when a person still is in the workforce. We find that our bodies function differently during work days than when off for weekends. Temperature also plays a role. Even with AC, our upstairs bedroom does not cool enough to a comfortable temperature… and we just replaced our AC and furnace in July! Anyway, I would venture to say that it was closer to 11p, but I finally fell asleep ( The best thing for me at night is a cup of warm raw milk with nutmeg, or Golden milk, an Indian preparation of ginger, turmeric and other spices in cow’s milk, but I can’t have that right now. I did drink 2T of organic tart cherry concentrat...

Had a long sleep, and I can't recall waking up during the night.  Since starting this journey, for the amount of liquids I am drinking a day, I'm glad the bathroom is close by!   We decided that we would spend the Sabbath morning at Lincoln Memorial Gardens  within nature's cathedral.  We hadn't been there for awhile (since the summer solstice).  So after our daily morning drink (heated water, 2T pure lemon juice - I like Lakewood , and 10 grams of collagen with peptide powder) I made another peach ginger smoothie for me as I made yesterday afternoon, and one for Bill as well. Then he had Ezekiel Flax seed toast with almond butter (not suppose to have that yet, so I will be patient.)   It was a great morning and I didn't start feeling hungry until the end of our hike. We put in almost 5 miles, with breaks along the way, including time to sit in front of the lake to just be and listen, and participate, in morning prayer with Abbey of the Art . Fin...

Saturday is Farmer's Market day.   The usual routine need to be altered as we had a 9a zoom for our Dominican Sister/Associate gathering.  Topic:   The Holy Preaching: On Care for Our Common Home.  We are not active as maybe we should be.  I always get "on fire" after attending a retreat such as this.  But that is another blog. As I have found, I am waking up with more energy.  Today is day-8.  Preparing breakfast is not what it used to look like and I miss my eggs and sautéed vegetables.  Sometimes for breakfast I would prepare salmon and eggs as well.  Breakfasts that include pancakes or muffins have been reserved for Saturday or Sunday for years, as starting the workday off with a good protein and vegetable meal has seemed important.   This morning for breakfast  I made a pumpkin fig smoothie:  2T SP Complete, 2T Whey Pro, 1/2 cop organic pureed pumpkin, 1/2 frozen banana, 4 small fresh fig...