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Eat Local Challenge (Aug 29 to Sep 19, 2010)

Joanna — Wed, 18 Aug 2010 20:35:27 +0000

A great big thank you to Honest Weight Food Co-op for being a sponsor of our Eat Local Challenge.

Honest weight is a member-owned and-operated cooperative for healthy foods, products and education here in the Albany, NY area.
On the two website links above, you will find all the information you need to participate in this challenge as well as lots of upcoming events and a very useful calendar of when local fruits and veggies are in season in New York!

I’m so excited to find this calendar because I have found that purchasing produce from local growers, in season, ensures that I will get produce that is:

fresh (not trucked across the country for weeks)
packed with nutrition
and last, but not least, lower priced (great for stocking up on and flash freezing, dehydrating or canning for later)

No matter where you are there are fantastic local merchants. If you don’t have a challenge like this going on near you, why not take a little time and put one together?? Your community will thank you! I’d love to hear about how you are promoting local growers and vendors.

P.S. If you are in California there is a produce calendar in the book Frugal Luxuries by Tracy McBride. (This is one of my very favorite books of all times!)

Raw Foods: Making a Green Smoothie to Rawk Your Socks!

What is health???

Why Organic is Important With Raw Foods…

Raw Foods Info Series

Eating ‘Right’?

Joanna — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 12:35:35 +0000

This morning in my devotion time, I am challenged by a particular passage. “Treasures of wickedness profit nothing: but righteousness delivereth from death.” Pr 10:2

Is it possible that this ‘righteousness’ goes beyond the modern interpretation of doing the right thing? Could it be that it includes the care of our body, our vessel, of which we have only one in this life?

We really don’t want to hear this. We want to continue to indulge on our junk food. We are addicted say the scientists, and I believe them.

So, is it un-righteous to eat junk? Is it sinful to feed our bodies that which kills them off faster than ‘normal’? Are we responsible for what we willingly put into our bodies? In my opinion, it’s worth bringing before the throne in prayer.

I have found that the ‘cleaner’ I eat, the more sensitive I am both to the world/ life around me and the spiritual things. I am more creative in direct response to the healthiness of my diet.

What is ‘clean’ food, you may ask? Simply put… the opposite of processed food.

eating closer to nature
freshest, in-season, locally grown ingredients
avoiding processed and fractionated foods
avoiding highly cooked foods

What do you think? Are you addicted? Here is a short, little painless quiz:

Are You Addicted to Junk Food?

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What is righteousness? How far should we take it? In the words of our Pastor, Rick Frank, “As far as we can…”

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Righteousness according to Noah Webster’s Dictionary

1. (n.) Holiness; purity; uprightness; rectitude.

2. (n.) A righteous act, or righteous quality.

3. (n.) The act or conduct of one who is righteous.

4. (n.) The state of being right with God; justification; the work of Christ, which is the ground of justification.

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Around my house, we have a routine I really enjoy. We read one chapter each day of the book of Proverbs that corresponds with the date. Since Proverbs has 31 chapters, it works out perfectly in those longer months. The author, Solomon, was said to have been one of the wisest men that ever lived. His book is full of wisdom about life, love and business. I’m amazed every time that I reap such deep principles from it, over and over again.

Replace Junk with Amazingness

Joanna — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 20:30:43 +0000

‘The only constant is change,’ I’ve heard it said… As an army wife, I can attest to that.

Hoo-rah.

Over a year ago my friend Susan and I made a cross-country pact to each other. ‘Replace junk with amazing-ness.’ If you are familiar with Susan Powers’ work over at Rawmazing, you know that she has been doing just that! Not only does she have an amazing offering of luscious, health inducing, gourmet recipes all created in her own kitchen, she also has a Rawmazing cookbook on it’s way to press.

Many of my own issues, goals and dreams had to be put on ice while our family made several life changes over the last several months. Change happens… by nature, I tend to resist…

After our second cross-country move in a little over a year, we are now relatively settled and I am ready for action!

Personally, I was surprised to realize that 2010 is half over! Where should I start?

New state, new friends, new church, new grocery stores and malls. New opportunities! (Can I get an amen if you’ve been there recently?)

~~If you haven’t taken the time recently to chart where you are headed, just jump right on in with me… Here is an 1-2-3 action plan for a successful second half:

Essential Life Reset 101:

Set Goals by Area of Life (Business, Family, Finances, Friends, Health, Home, Leisure, Projects, Recreation, Spirituality, Travel, Work) Brainstorm as many things in each category as you can dream up. Translate these ideas, then to:
Goals By Month by highlighting which ideas you want to get started on immediately. Break these down further by planning what you need to do to move toward each goal in the upcoming week:
Goals & Achievements for Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday… (you get the idea) It’s important to have a place for writing down both goals AND achievements for reference the following week.

Some of the goals I decided to work on right now:

Get the house fully settled from moving here last Month (Painting/ eliminating)
Becoming incredibly money savvy (budget/ investment)
Getting the word out locally about my coaching (advertisement/ events)
Getting my diet back on target (releasing a few pounds, too!)

I’d love to hear what goals you are working on! Please feel free to share and we can encourage each other

Blessings!

Joanna

~One of my favorite sites is ListPlanIt, check it out if you are a list-maker/ planning type as well. (For $20 a year, I think it’s well worth not having to make these sheets myself!)

GPS: Where are you going?

Essential Life Coaching:

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