homeofthebudds

The book(s) I want to permanently borrow.

Now, you guys know I'm kinda a nerd, right? A hippie sort of nerd?

This week, I stumbled upon the perfect, best ever hippie nerd book. Ever.

First off, can I just say I love all these old Reader's Digest Anthology type books? I have one on various kinds of crafts and it is awesome. My sister has one on sewing and needlework things and it is awesome. I have another on fixing things. Again with the awesome. I love these. If you ever see any sort of Readers Digest anthology lying in a thrift store, grab it up for me. I'll love you forever.

Promise.

I digress.

The book! *Reader's Digest Back to Basics - How to learn and enjoy traditional American skills.*

I love it.

Poor Dave could hardly get to sleep last night as I kept flipping pages, and shouting out "Look at this!! and Look at this! Can you believe it has this? Did you know this?"

I should stop taking books to bed.

LOOK at this! Did you know you can tell from the types of plants growing what sort of water is beneath your soil?? Or how deep the water is under there?

If you've got rushes and cattails - you're probably dealing with marshland. Hmm. That might be a given, Reader's Digest. I'm just sayin'.

But - rabbit brush - that's a handy plant to know about. It only grows where there is water no more than 15ft below the ground.

That'd be super useful knowledge if you were ever going to go buy some land in the country and thought about digging a well.

Now you know.

This book tells you about the different natural dye options out there. Dude!! I've actually been wondering about that lately. I have a pile of things I'd like to dye, and I'd rather not use anything toxic. Dude!

This books tells you how to store your mounds of potatoes and apples outside! For long periods of time! Cause sometimes you have more potatoes than space in the house! I've heard that can be a problem.

Maybe not my problem, but now I know what to do if it ever becomes my problem!

This book also tells you how to build a house from rocks,

and how to butcher things.

I skipped those pages. And went back to the one of about pretty flowers dying things pretty colors.

Much better.

Basket weaving!!

I am so weaving a basket this year.

Making cosmetics from the kitchen!

Maybe I'll start wearing cosmetics this year.

So, I confess. I joked with Dave about keeping this book indefinitely.

Do you have any idea how much WORK it would be to try to locate this out of print book online??? And then having it shipped?? Far too much effort. I have to save all my energy for surveying potential property for rabbit brush and foraging for cochineal to dye my clothes red.

There's another book I found this week that's also super awesome. Not quite as hippy-nerdy, but still awesome in it's own way. I'll show it to you Monday.

In which I describe how I've turned into a full blown hippie. the short version.

I'm going raw. 

"What does that mean?" you ask.

That means that from now until I break down and eat the pizza that is always calling my name I will stick to fruit, vegetables, nuts and sprouted grains. 

"Hmmm sounds fairly limiting" you say.

I don't actually fill limited. I loooooove fruit. and I'm learning to get along with vegetables. But I've been doing a lot of 50%ish raw for the last few weeks, and that seems to be all that I ever really want anyway. (Except for that blasted pizza of course.)

But!! I had the perfect opportunity to eat pizza this past week (Dave being out late. That is almost always the time I go for it) and I totally passed it up. Easily!

"Well, that's very nice Sarah but what would every possess you to 'go raw'?" you ask.

The books I read. Filled with all their hippie talk about "detox" and "live enzymes" and "healing your body with food" and mumbo jumbo like that. I really dig that mumbo jumbo.

Today was day 3 for me of practically 100% raw. Yesterday I had a slice of bread. Today a sprouted grain tortilla. And you know what - after both of those "indulgences" I felt gross. Oh oops - I forgot to mention, one of the benefits of going raw is that you feel absolutely amazing. Amazingly good. Energetic and light and clear and just good. For instance yesterday, I was hungry and went to the fridge to get something to eat. I thought about the fruit I had just purchased and that I should put it away but decided that first it would be really nice to put it away in a clean fridge. So I cleaned it. 

I CLEANED THE FRIDGE!!! BEFORE EATING WHATEVER I WAS GOING FOR!!!

I don't know about you but that is not my normal m.o. It is much more typical for me to think about food and then scarf whatever I see. I don't usually wait to get hungry. That hungry feeling tends to be paired with an emotional panic akin to a burglar breaking in. This is not something that should ever happen. And if you think it might you do everything in your power to avoid it. Fast. Immediately and with some urgency to your actions that may include a bit of yelling at people to leave you alone while you look for food because you are STARVING!!!

But not yesterday. Yesterday I was actually really truly hungry. And my emotional reaction? Much closer to that feeling you get when the laundry needs to be moved from the washer to the dryer. Pretty much no feeling. More of a "Oh yeah. I should take care of that. Let me just finish this here..."

And I CLEANED the FRIDGE. Again not something that I do often. Or much at all. Usually I pretend I don't notice things like dirty refrigerators. 

Plus I feel good. Really truly good. Good enough that pizza is actually not attractive to me at all. I've been making a lot of smoothies in the last few weeks (as I've mentioned) and adding more and more vegetables to the mix. I was feeling good about the fact that I'm eating (drinking) all these vegetables I don't normally ingest (we went through over a pound of fresh spinach in 2 and a half days. That's a lot of spinach people. And kale. We totally drank kale.) but truthfully, wasn't feeling so hot. I felt tired and sluggish and gassy. Really really gassy. (sorry but it's the truth). Turns out - you're not supposed to combine fruit and vegetables. 

All these books I'm reading keep mentioning "food combining" which I've encountered before and always considered a bunch of hooey. But this time, I thought shoot - let's give this a whirl. So no more vegetables in the smoothies. And I feel (and smell) soooo much better. 

So. I'm totally a Portland hippie. To prove it tomorrow I'm going to go join a food co-op and check out their schedule of free yoga classes.