Veggies, Fruits and Meet my Mom

Today I think I will write about my mom, since she's been on my mind a bit lately. I don't know, probably since it's her birthday this month. Shall we get started?

My mom was bat shit crazy. Ok, maybe not bat shit, but she was crazy. There are a lot of mental issues that run in her family. More on that some other time, or maybe later on in this post. There was something about her that just was just a bit off. I can't really explain it, maybe quirky would be a better way of putting it. Either way, as a teenager growing up with her, it made life...interesting.

You might notice that I speak about her in past tense, and that is because in 1995 she passed away. In 1984 my mom was diagnosed with breast cancer, and my mom being herself decided that chemo and radiation was not for her. Now look at the above years. Subtract 1984 from 1995. That's eleven years my mom lived without taking mainstream treatments until the last year of her life. Almost a year before she died, she decided to try the chemo. It didn't work. I'm going to share with you her amazing journey, because it is amazing and it certainly had God's hand in it.

I don't remember the month, but sometime in 1984 when my mom told me to sit on her bed with her because she had something to tell me. (We just happened to be in her room.) I hopped up on her bed and said, "what's up?" I was around twelve years old at the time. She started to cry, and I knew it wasn't good. She told me that a couple of weeks before she had gone to the doctors and they had found a lump in her breast. She told me she just came back from speaking with the specialist. It was confirmed that she had breast cancer and the doctor told her that she had 6 months or less to live. BAM! Life as we both knew it ended that day.

 She made the decision to forgo the mainstream treatments, due to other family members dying while taking them. Her philosophy was that it was the chemo and radiation that killed the family members. She very well could have been accurate,  but I'm no specialist. In place of the mainstream treatments she went all natural. This woman was way ahead of the times, and it was hell for a teenager who liked to snack on junk food. She also kept having the tumors removed when they occasionally came back.

Let me explain a bit here for you. These fads you see now and days about, I don't know lets say, Pomegranate juice. She was doing this WAY before it became the norm or the fad. I don't know where she got her information from since there was no internet as we know it today, but I notice today, that everything, and I do mean everything she used to preach to me about health and nutrition is true. I remember when I moved to my dads house when I was 14, and while going through things and packing up I found the stash of vitamins that I hid everyday. There were a butt load of them! Can you tell I was not on the health food bandwagon yet?

My mom continued to try alternative treatments to cure her cancer, and during this time her being a woman who already was very religious turned ultra religious. She had a ritual so to speak. She would take her vitamins, go to the Chiropractor, eat all natural foods which included juicing, and pray like there was no tomorrow, because for her there might not have been another day.  She would go in for her follow-ups and 9 times out of ten there was no cancer to be found. That other one percent...yeah it was cancer. Usually when the cancer re-appeared it  was during the times where she wasn't eating her diet, and praying like she usually did. Many times she would come home and say they found a tumor, and go back on her routine, to have the tumor completely gone at the next visit.

She did this despite the fact that EVERYONE told her she was crazy and was going to die. She lost many friends because she refused to do the mainstream treatments. Family members refused to speak with her because of it. 
I  was stuck in the middle. Today I understand the reasoning behind everyone's insistence that she go mainstream. It was because it was what they knew. It was what everyone did. My mom's approach was new, and almost unheard of. They were afraid it wouldn't work, and they didn't want to see her die. cancer is after all scary enough to deal with without going outside the box. 

So for eleven years everyone held their breath as they sat there and waited for that day. We all new she would die from the cancer, just didn't know when it would happen. I used to think about when she died, as the day of relief. The wait was finally over, and I no longer had to stand there and wonder when it would happen. Looking back I realize that was the worse thing anyone could have done for her. How hard was it to keep going on when nobody believed in what you were doing? We essentially were planning her death. Actually, I just realized this as I was writing and am having a bitch of a time dealing with this realization. 

My mom had my brother when she was 43 years old and went into stage 4 cancer. I remember the day she told me she was pregnant, and I asked her if she was stupid.  How could she be so selfish to bring a child into the world knowing that it would probably kill her, and her child would grow up without her. Her answer to me was, "God decided that this was to be." Now don't get me wrong here, I believe in God, I really do. However in all honesty I certainly do not have the faith that my mom did, and her religiousness was driving me crazy. 

Through out this time her cancer had gone from her breast to her lymph nodes, to her bones, and in the end, into her blood. Let me click back a bit here, and let you know that she did make an appointment with the doctor who first diagnosed her and told her she had six months to live and when she told him how she was going to treat it he then gave her a month. Six years after that diagnose she walked in with her head held high and told that doctor to shove his diagnose where the sun don't shine. In a very religious way of course.

In January of 1995 I had my daughter. I called my mom who lived 4+hours away at 4:00am and told her it was time. She drove 260 miles to witness her first grandchild be born. She arrived 15 minutes after I was admitted, she asked if she could take a seat, and I asked her why she was walking funny she told me when the cancer entered her bones it had weakened two of her vertebrates and they were crushed. I asked her where my step-dad was, and she told me he was at home nursing something or other from surgery. She had driven herself all that ways with two crushed vertebrates! Hell fucking yeah she could have a seat! 


That was about the time where things for her started to really head south. It was also the time where she went on the chemo pack. I was at home one day when she called me from the hospital. She wanted me to call the nurses station because they weren't answering the call button. Problem here, I had no clue which hospital she was in. The only info she could give me was she was in Madison WI, and she was freezing. She could hardly talk she was so cold. After playing phone tag with several hospitals and churches to locate my mom or my step-dad I headed out to Madison without a clue as to where I was going, but with one goal in mind. Find my mom, and figure out what the hell was going on. I made the five hour drive in three hours. Little did I know she would be gone in two weeks.

By this time the cancer had entered her bloodstream and was having the worst impact on her than in all the other years put together. It was causing too much calcium to be produced and the side effects of this were that she was very tired and slept a lot. The doctors were able to keep it under control for awhile, but in the end it did a huge spike and essentially what happened was that she went to bed and never woke up again. She fought the cancer for eleven years, but in the end...the calcium in the bloodstream took her in a matter of months. ( Side note here. Just because a person has high calcium levels doesn't not mean they have cancer. What happened to my mom is very rare, and only some times happens with people in late stage cancer.)


She passed in November of 1995, eleven months after she witnessed her first grandchild being born. My little brother was only three years old. My mom taught me many things about taking care of my body and being healthy, and for years I scorned it and laughed at it. It's come full circle now, as I currently am having health issues, and bit by bit I am remembering the things I was taught. I am also kicking myself in the ass for not listening in the first place. Don't you know? Mothers always know best. Slowly I'm changing my life into a healthier one, and I'm sure just like my mom, I too will be ridiculed for going against the mainstream, and being a bit quirky, but it's  all good, she's got my back.

Kale? Really? Well Ok Then.

I have decided that it is time to get healthier and loose some weight...ok like a lot of weight. About 60 lbs or so. Yep ya'll I'm a tubby. I usually don't eat a lot of junk food, and we usually don't have much processed food here. Most of what we eat is homemade straight from my heart. Yeah right, it is homemade though. So with that being said...


I have a pop addiction. Yeah big time. I love my pop, which is weird since I don't like to put a bunch of crap I can't pronounce in my body. I guess it is what it is, and it's bad for my health and body so it must go. Problem...I have no idea what to replace it with. I can manage to drink tea, but only with a ton of sugar( kinda defeats the purpose there). I hate the taste and smell of coffee. OMG when DH makes his espresso's I really want to puke. Water...it's so...blah. The only time that I can actually suck water down is when it's hotter than a witches tit (where did that saying come from? I just can't picture a witch's tit being hot, can you?) outside and then that is the only thing that will quench my thirst as long as there are tons of ice cubes.
Diet anything is for sure out. I do not like the taste of it, nor will I allow myself to grow attached to the taste of something artificial. I have a hard enough time getting used to the taste of stuff that's actually good for me. Juice is not cost effective enough, and shouldn't be sucked down like there's no tomorrow anyhow. So as you can see...I'm screwed.


Moving on...a couple of months ago, well I guess sometime before Christmas I saw a documentary about some guy doing a 60 day juice fast. It got me thinking, and that's about all it did. When I told DH about it he on the other hand was like, "hell yeah, why not?" So I found him a juicer. Then I got him the recipe for the Mean Green Juice. Then I got him the ingredients. Can you guess what came next? Yep, I made the juice for him. Can't you see it's all about the patterns here people?


This recipe had Kale in it, not a lot, but it had it. I don't know about you, but Kale is not my thing. At all. It stinks when you juice it and it is so strong and, and unpleasant tasting. The next time I made him a batch of this juice, I cut the amount of Kale in half and it still overpowered everything but the ginger. 


So I have established the fact that I do not like Kale. I don't care if it is the new super food to eat, and will wipe out every disease on earth. (Damn would't that be awesome?)  I do not like it. With that being said...


Last night, or rather early this morning I decided to try making my own veggie chips. So I looked it up on the good ole net, cuz that's were it's all at right. I found a recipe for carrot chips or rather strips, and since that's all I really had in the house that's what I made. So at 12:51am I started making them. Turned out pretty good too, and DH liked them. Think I will do things a bit different next time.


Now this brings me on to today. Guess what I'm making? Come on try and guess. Re-read over the last couple of paragraphs. Did you figure it out yet? Jeez...I'm making Kale chips with fresh shredded Parmesan. Bwahahaha! Guess what? They are pretty damn good, for Kale. I wouldn't call them chips though like everyone out there is calling them. Just cuz something is dried out and crunches don't mean it's a chip. You sure could never dip these things. They are fricken dried leaves for crying out loud, but I'll eat them. In fact, I can't seem to stop eating them. If DH don't get his butt up soon there wont be any for him to try out.


Here's what I did if you would like to try these:


I only made a small amount just in case they were gross.


four stems of kale
olive oil spray
sea salt
fresh Parmesan


Pre-heat oven to 350F


Wash and make sure you dry the kale well. Very important that it's dry.


Remove the leaves from the stems and place on a cookie sheet that has been sprayed with olive oil.


Spray the leaves with the olive oil


Take the sea salt and with your fingers sprinkle on the leaves of kale.


Shred some fresh parmesan and sprinkle lightly on each kale leaf.


Bake in heated oven for about twelve minutes. They will be done when the edges dry out and they feel crispy. 

There's "Someone" in My Kitchen!

One of the things that just makes my eyes go crossed and steam come out my ears is when "someone" decides to go into the kitchen and create stuff. Now don't get me wrong this "someone" is actually a very good creator of edible things. I love it when he creates!


I however do not like the mess that is left over. It is gigantic! It is indescribable. One can only, upon entering the kitchen, just stand there with mouth gaping wide, as you take in the destruction. I'm talking food splattered on the other side of the kitchen and on the ceiling type of disaster. 


Lately this "someone" (DH) has decided that he want's to start juicing veggies and fruit. Sweet! Way cool! I have nothing against getting healthier. I would do it too, but I just don't like the consistency. Thinking I might be the smoothie kinda girl. 


So aanyhoo, awhile ago, I went out and found a couple of juicers at the thrift store. (Yes I am a thrift store junkie) I bought them both just in case. Apparently the person who had them before was a lazy person, because it seriously took me three hours to clean these things. Glad they were so cheap or they would have been tossed within the first half hour. 


So I made the first couple of drinks for DH, I made sure I clean the stupid juicers till they shined. After all the work I already put into them I sure had better not find them looking like that again. 


Then that day came. That day when someone decided to make his own juices. It was a happy, sad day for me. Happy because I no longer had to make these these seriously huge pain in the butt drinks, sad because Somebody was in the kitchen, and I wasn't even getting a steak made for me. The mess was so not worth it. I felt seriously ripped off. 


The mess turned out to be everything I imagined, and then some. I have to say he did manage to get the equipment into the sink, however the rinsing and washing was left to Princess and I. I hate juicers! I will be just as healthy eating a whole fricken apple and not have the mess. He made about four of the drinks, and realized what a pain in the ass they were to make.  


While it's a good thing to do things to get your body healthier, sometimes doing things the old fashioned way is best. Well I guess that is if you don't want steam and my eyes going crossed you will go the clean old school way. Cuz good golly miss molly, I am bone tired of cleaning up after peoples. Cheers to you on getting healthy again!