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Happy New Year real food lovers!  I hope you had a wonderful Christmas and New Year celebration, and that some where in there you had a chance to enjoy time with family and friends and perhaps some quiet time to relax.  If you are a mother like myself with young children, you probably spent a lot of your time cooking, baking, shopping, wrapping, entertaining and generally working harder than you were able to enjoy!

Despite having a fairly quiet Christmas, I for one over did it and drained my poor adrenals once again.  I think that as mothers we sometimes put too much pressure on ourselves to do it all, and do it well!  And as a real foodie, I pride myself in making sure that the foods I make are from scratch and properly prepared.  For me, this means, sprouting the whole wheat berries, dehydrating, grinding and sifting for the baked goods.  Soaking and dehydrating the nuts and seeds, soaking the Christmas Dinner buttermilk biscuits overnight, rendering pastured lard for the pecan pie, marinating and dehydrating the beef jerky (for gifts) ahead of time, etc.  It all takes a lot of time, and requires planning, which I tend to fall short on.  So, I have been spending the last couple of weeks trying to quietly recover.  I suppose part of it is the season of life we as a family are in right now.  As the kids get older, things will get a little easier, right? Besides, as a real foodie, I don’t think I could bring myself to do it any differently, other than, maybe to become more organized! Hmmm, maybe another one for the list of goals this year?

So, here we are, in the middle of January, and I’m sure many of you have laid out some new years resolutions for yourselves. Maybe you’ve vowed to lose that weight you’ve struggled with for a while, start an exercise program, give up white sugar, maybe even learn to play a new instrument!  Honestly, I am not one to set unrealistic resolutions that I am not likely to keep. So, if you are thinking about some resolutions or goals to set for yourself, I would encourage you to really think about how attainable they are and just what is really important to you. Rather than losing that unwanted weight, why not focus on doing what it takes to just get healthy first?  There are a handful of goals in my life that I am hoping to see come to fruition this year, and I’d like to share them with you.

MY GOALS FOR 2012:

1. Heal my body. If I am not functioning at my best, I am no good to anyone.  People often question how I could be overweight or have any health problems because I eat such a healthy diet. Besides, I have been preaching to people all about traditional diets for the last several years now.  If this diet was so healthy, why do I still have problems?  Well, I am over 30 years old, and sadly I wasn’t born into this world as healthy as I could have been. And, either were my parents, or their parents.  Processed and fake foods have been in use for over one hundred years now, and this has affected several generations.  My parents smoked cigarettes, had their children close together, and served us plenty of processed food.  I had crooked teeth and grew up wearing glasses.  I’ve since had three children myself now and even though I have been eating a nourishing diet for over 4 years, the bad has managed to outweigh the good.  But, this doesn’t mean I give up.  It means I do my best to rebuild and repair.  I may not ever function 100 percent perfectly, but I want to function the best I can. My biggest complaint is adrenal fatigue, which causes a sluggish thyroid, heavy metal toxicity, being overweight, and hormonal imbalance.  I am undergoing a nutritional balancing program that is addressing all of these issues, and I will blog about this in a future blog post.

2. De-stress! Learn to say no, take time for myself, and relax.  This includes taking long, hot epsom baths after the kids go to bed, sweating it out in my new infrared sauna (yes, this is relaxing to me), reading more, going for the occasional massage or to the tanning bed when I get a chance.

3. Remove my amalgam fillings. I was convinced at the WAPF conference this past November that I really need to remove this mercury from my mouth as to reduce the toxic load on my body.  I have three silver fillings in my mouth and that can’t be doing me any favours.  I have heard that this mercury is always releasing it’s vapor, especially when rubbed (tooth brushing), or when exposed to hot food or liquid.  Dentist Dr. Pentti Nupponen told us in his talk that one mercury filling is the equivalent to one broken mercury thermometer constantly leaking in your mouth.  Yikes!  He also said that mercury accumulates in your thyroid gland.  Gee, I wonder if there is any connection here between my heavy metal toxicity and my sluggish thyroid???

4. Get more sleep. Not just that, because I usually average about 8.5-9 hours per night (remember, adrenal fatigue), but I need to train my body to go to bed earlier, like before midnight earlier.  It is hard.  I am with all of my kids all day long, and when they go to bed, I feel like it is my time to get some things done and simply de-stress.  So, it is my goal to hit the sheets between 10-11pm. I believe the more sleep we get before midnight, the better.  And by doing this, I will also be able to wake up earlier thus starting our day earlier.  I tend to really drag in the morning, and I refuse to make my adrenal fatigue worse by drinking coffee.

5. Blog more! It is my goal to blog oncer per week.  I have so much information that I’d like to share and recipes to post, but where does a homeschooling mom of 3 find the time?  My hubby works a lot, I don’t have a housekeeper or nanny, and so, it’s all me around here!  I’m not complaining though, at least I try not to .  But, since real food is my passion, I need to fit it in!  If there is anything you’d like to see me write about or a topic you’d like me to cover, please let me know!

6. Move into a bigger home! We have been here in our first starter house for almost 8 years and in this time our family has expanded from 3 people to 5 plus several animals!  We have outgrown it and are stepping all over each other and our things!  The Lord is good and has provided for us during this time and I pray that he will do the same come spring when it is time to sell and find the home we are looking for.  I would love to be able to move out of the city onto a bigger property where my children can run and throw a ball without it getting over the neighbors fence!  I would also love to be able to keep some backyard chickens and have a large veggie garden.  A big kitchen with lots of cupboard space would also make me very happy.

I could go on and continue to hope and dream for many other things to happen this year such as finally losing the weight, exercising more, having a clean house and preparing meals on time everyday.  But, I won’t.  It is not realistic for me and only contributes to my stress.  Ultimately I know that God is in control and it is only through Him that the necessary changes will occur.

Do you have any resolutions or goals that you would like to share?
Don’t be hard on yourself, just do your best!  If you set goals or resolutions that are not realistic, you will only feel stressed and worse about yourself in the long run.  Let this be your year – focus on you and your health!  It is not selfish.  As mothers, we can’t serve our families or friends until we have taken care of ourselves first.  This has been a struggle for me, and continues to be.  My adrenals have been paying the price.  We cannot sacrifice our health and well being at the expense of others.

Happy New Year my friends and good health to you!

This post is being shared over at Monday Mania, Real Food Wednesday and Simple Lives Thursday.

Photo Credit: 2012 Calendar by danielmoyle’s photostream on Flikr

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