The Paleo Mama

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Memoirs of a Sister: Day 1

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I’ve decided to dedicate this next month of my blogging to my sister. Each day I’m going to post a random memory of Dinah until September 23, the day she died. I figured this might help me as we approach the one year anniversary mark of her passing. You see, I don’t want to forget Dinah, I want to celebrate her beautiful life.

And so here I begin…these memoirs of my sister…some may be beautiful. Some may only make me laugh. Some may bring you to tears. This is her life.

Growing up me and Dinah were just like most sisters. When we fought, we fought hard. When we laughed, we laughed so hard that our abs hurt the next day. And when someone disrespected us, we defended each other’s honor.

Dinah was arrested once. This makes me chuckle just thinking about it. Dinah and I were going to the movies one night and as we were standing in line for tickets, a really tall and muscular man was standing behind us. It was our turn to go buy our movie ticket and we were being loud and laughing (like we always were). I guess he was annoyed with us and he butted us in line and went up to the ticket counter. I said, “Excuse me, sir, it’s our turn and you just jumped in front of us.” He didn’t like that so he started yelling at me and walked over to me and called me a bitch.

I looked at Dinah and said to forget him. Then this man proceeded to come in my face and call me a “cunt”. Something in Dinah switched into protective sister mode and she ran over to this giant man (who we found out later had a black belt) and starting punching the living poo out of him. She ended up ripping his shirt and went all cat-woman crazy by kicking him where it counted! Oh my, this just makes me laugh.

Thankfully, the man didn’t raise a hand to Dinah. I ended up peeling Dinah off of him and the cops, who were already on the scene, separated us. The douch-bag pressed charges and Dinah was hand-cuffed and driven away in a cop car. I stood there in horror as to what I was going to tell our parents. I think Dinah was still in highschool and I was in college. We were both still living at home, so I drove home and had the honor of telling our parents that Dinah was just arrested. LOL…oh Dinah.

She was released later that night but went through years of community service and anger management! We never let her live the anger management part down!

I hold this memory close to my heart. Dinah protected me. She defended my honor even though the offender was HUGE.

She was fearless.

She was brave.

She was impulsive.

She was Dinah.

 

When deep cries out to deep…

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I’ve never understood the verse from the Bible that says, “When deep cries out to deep.” I’ve never known deep. What is deep? Is it the bottom of a sinkhole? Is is the deep end of the pool? Or is it the way someone describes a wound? A wound; cut so deep to the bone…piercing pain, severed and bleeding; a wound so deep that nothing seems to heal it.

My father cut his leg 2.5 months ago and it doesn’t seem to heal. His leg has become an allegory for my emotions and aching that I feel. Maybe his leg won’t heal because his heart won’t heal. The pain that the Dinah-wound has left hasn’t even began to scar over. I feel left open, bleeding, and infected with lies. You see, my Dinah-wound is big. My Dinah-wound is cut to the bone. My Dinah-wound is infected with lies that have been whispered into my ear over and over and over again. “This is your fault, Jackie. You could have prevented this.” “Where were you for her.” “Didn’t you see the pain and anguish that she was feeling.” “You could have stopped this.” What kind of sister are you?”

My ears have heard these lies for too long. My heart has believed them. I can’t live like this. I know these are lies but yet I turn my ear to them. It’s so easy to blame yourself even when things are completely outside your control. You see, blaming myself has only pushed the grief farther down. It’s only made me angry and doesn’t let me get to the part where the true healing comes. My Dinah-wound is just beginning to heal. I see the tissue begin to repair and rebuild. I see the infection begin to disappear. I see the blood drying over and the scab beginning to form.

Dinah left without saying goodbye. The devastation that she must have felt must compare to the devastation that my family and I feel with her loss. They say that at a year you should be getting over your grief, but I feel like mine has just begun.

The crushed and pierced hands of my Savior are fixing me. They are reaching down into the deepest parts of my wound and with each “stitch” they are grabbing the flesh and pulling it back together.

My Dinah-wound will never look pretty. It will never look like it did before. The scar will always be there to invite questions from strangers and glances from people who knew what happened.

Dinah took her life and with it she took everything. Everything that I once was.

Dinah & I on my wedding day

This last year I have buried myself into my own personal cocoon. It’s comfortable in here. The walls of my cocoon protect. The walls of my cocoon keep me from moving on. My walls keep me from accepting that my sister is gone. Gone forever.

However, my Savior is with me and has reached His wounded hands into my walls and is forcing me to come out. The patterns on my wings tell of my story. The scars on my body tell of my hurt.

There will be no open wound when He is finished with me. My Dinah-wound will heal into a perfect scar and will only add to the beauty of the butterfly that God is creating out of me.

 

Confession: I Don’t Use Shampoo

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No, I am not gross. No, my hair is not greasy. No, I am not a hippy.

I haven’t used shampoo, conditioner, or hair products on my hair in a long tim. My hair has never felt so amazing. It’s soft and shiny. It is healthy. I have been doing what people call the “no poo” method. No I don’t put poo on my head…I’m not a Rastafarian!!! Haaaaa! “No Poo” stands for “no shampoo”. Get it?!! Ok, it actually took me awhile to get it. I would hear other natural-minded friends talk to me about the “no poo” method and I just didn’t get it. Then I started looking for a more natural way to color my hair. I discovered Henna! You can read about my Henna journey here: https://thepaleomama.com/2012/04/01/henna-hair-dye/ .

A few months into “no pooing”

I LOVE Henna now. I have done it every 6-8 weeks for awhile now. I will never go back to chemical-laden dyes. Henna is amazing. Ok, back to “no poo”!

“No Poo” Method is used when you make a baking soda paste as the shampoo/cleaning part and an apple cider vinegar rinse for the conditioner part. Ask your mamas how they used to get their hair to shine. They will say vinegar! This is nothing new; nothing hippy. I love bringing back what our mamas and grandmas used to do. They had it right in so many ways. Our modern-day culture is far from where we need to be. When it comes to living sustainably, I am all for it. So, when I finally started to understand the “no poo” method I figured I would give it a good try and LOVE it!

There are many methods that people use. I have found this method to work best for me: add 2 tablespoons of baking soda to about 1-2 cups of water. Pour this all over your wet head. Use your fingertips and really scrub your roots and scalp. This is where the grease starts and where I really focus on. I really don’t bother with the rest of the hair much when I am using the baking soda rinse. I make sure that all my roots and scalp are scrubbed and then I rinse it out. Now, we have been brainwashed to believe that scrubbing bubbles and foam equals clean. Not true! And you won’t get that with this method…or many other natural methods of cleaning. Chemicals are used to create foam and I’m not for that.

Once you rinse out all the baking soda then you are ready for the conditioner. I take 2 tablespoons of apple cider vinegar and add it to a cup of cold water. Because I don’t really like the smell of vinegar and I don’t like the smell in my hair, I add 5-8 drops of Sweet Orange essential oil to the mixture. This smell is heavenly! Next, I pour this all over my hair and massage it in really good, especially into my ends. I leave it on for a few minutes while I finish up the rest of my shower and then rinse it out with cold water. The colder the water, the more shiny and soft your hair will come out. The vinegar rinse also balances your PH levels after the baking soda wash.

My hair used to be so coarse. In order for it to look good, I had to blow dry it and then straighten it. My hair was so damaged by the overuse of chemicals in all the hair products I was using and the overuse of heat in styling it. Now, my hair is so soft I don’t even have to use any kind of styling products to make it soft, like serums. I don’t blow dry it anymore. I let it air dry and then sometimes I will straighten it. If it starts to feel a little coarse throughout the day, I rub a teeny tiny amount of coconut oil on it and it softens it right up.

I love my hair now! Using this method has also helped the Henna coloring to stay on longer and doesn’t fade. The only time I have to re-do my coloring is when my white roots start to grow out.

Hope this encourages you to give it a try! Also, your hair goes through a period in the beginning when it overproduced sebum (hair grease) because it’s so used to be washed everyday with shampoo that strips the natural oils off. Don’t fret! This period only lasts a few weeks at the very most. Wash your hair 2-3 times a week and it will eventually even out.

Overflowing in Love and Breastmilk

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Many of you may remember that back in February I posted a plea of help to find local mama’s who would be willing to donate their precious, hard-earned and hard-pumped breast milk to my son Frankie. If you didn’t get a chance to read that post you can read it by going here: https://thepaleomama.com/2012/02/26/anymamasmilkistrulythebest/. To sum it up (although I would really recommend you reading it) I lost my milk supply 7 months ago when I had, very tragically, lost my younger sister. Despite all my efforts to save my breast milk and attempt to find a formula to use, my son lost weight, became extremely colicky, suffered reflux, and became dairy/formula intolerant. I was at a loss what to do. I was grieving the loss of my sister and trying to do all I could to find a way to feed my son. About 3 weeks after my sister’s death, a friend offered some of her frozen, pumped breast milk. I took the milk home, defrosted it as fast as I could, and fed my child. As I was feeding Frankie his first bottle of breast milk, tears came to my eyes as I saw his eyes light up when the first drops of sweet, nutritious milk hit his lips. As I said in my blog back in February, these were not tears of guilt or self-condemnation, but tears of joy and redemption. I felt like the wounds and scars that were made, because of my lack of ability to breastfeed, were slowly healed in that moment. Moments after he drank his first bottle of donated milk, I noticed how I had my little sweet and healthy boy back. He didn’t throw any of it up. He didn’t wrench his back in pain. He didn’t scream or fuss for hours after the feeding. He was happy, content, and alert!

I was so overwhelmed with the response I had to that blog post. I was, literally, drowning in emails and Facebook messages about amazing mother’s from all over the world that had milk they wanted to donate to Frankie. My husband didn’t see me for a week! I met some incredible and extremely generous mothers after I posted about how desperately we needed milk. I received emails from Malaysia, Singapore, and Australia from mother’s who wanted to send me milk. I was in tears as I responded to so many of YOU and did my best to express my deepest thanks.

Three months and two deep freezers later, I am so deeply honored to say that my son will thrive on donated breast milk way past his one year birthday!!! The burden that has been lifted by mothers who have selflessly donated to Frankie is indescribable. Words sound so cheap compared to what they have done, however, I am so deeply thankful to the superhero mother’s who have flown into my life and saved my day.

Thank you. If you had a part in nourishing my son, thank you. If you read my blog and prayed for us, thank you. If you forwarded my blog on and shared it on Facebook, thank you!

 

25 lbs down and some before and after!

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I thought it was time to write about how I am actually feeling and doing on Paleo. It has been nearly 6 months since I started my own personal Paleo journey. It’s been 3 months since my whole family has been eating Paleo. Since I started in October, I have lost a total of 25 lbs!!! My husband has lost 31 lbs since he started January 1st and has lowered his cholesterol enough to come off his statin drugs! I have noticed huge behavior changes in my 3-year-old daughter since we took gluten, sugar, and dairy out of her diet. And my 8 month old son, who weighed in at 20lbs a month ago, is thriving, happy, content and such a joy to be around. He eats everything I give him. His recent favorites are Paleo chicken nuggets, roasted asparagus, and grilled squash.

So I’m going to show my current before and after pictures. Seeing these are motivation in itself to keep going!

BEFORE
AFTER

I tell people all the time that I feel amazing. I really do. There is no other way to describe how I feel with our new lifestyle. I have so much energy throughout the day…much needed energy since I’m chasing around a highly energetic 3-year-old and an 8 month old army crawler! My mind feels clearer. I haven’t had a headache since I started Paleo. This is now such a part of our life that I NEVER want to go back to what we were before. It’s become second nature and easy.

Do I cheat? Hmm, I like to call it indulging and, yes, I do indulge once a week on one meal. This week I had chips, dip, and Mojitos with my girlfriends and it was GREAT! Last week I had wings and pizza.

Do I let my kids cheat? I am not going to be able to watch every, single thing my kids put in their mouth. I’m also not going to be so strict that I don’t let them indulge in something that they love. Geez, I do! So, yes, I let my daughter eat gluten snacks at her preschool. I let her Papa give her ice cream every day that we were home a few weeks ago. I let my son have those organic puffs when I see them on sale. Life is too short to not have a little bit of indulgences in our life when it comes to food. You have to be able to find that balance to where you can indulge and be done with it. It took a few months for me to be able to do that without being tempted for more or without my body telling me I need more.

Do I workout? If you mean “going to the gym working out”, then no. I just love to be home with my kids. Our mornings are so great together and Frankie is in such a routine with his morning nap that I just don’t even want to mess that up. However, I am on my feet ALL day. So, I wouldn’t say that I don’t exercise, I just don’t do strenuous exercise. And I’m ok with that. Obviously my body is ok with that because I’m losing weight. I cannot devote the time to do any kind of crazy workout schedule, that’s why I could never do a diet that requires me to. Another reason why I love Paleo. It works with your body like nature intended.

What the heck do I eat if I can’t have gluten, diary, or sugar? LOTS!!! I have so many different types of new foods these last few months that I have never tried! I used to just make side salads to go with dinners before we were eating Paleo, but now I am making so many different types of vegetable dishes! We’ve had things like: coconut-almond green beans, roasted Brussel sprouts, kale chips, marinated and roasted beets, creamy cucumbers, mashed cauliflower, cauliflower rice, spaghetti squash, squash fries, sweet potato chips, roasted turnips, parsnip fries, leeks, fennel salads, Jicama home fries, and SO MUCH MORE! Does that sound restrictive to you? Eating Paleo has opened up my eyes to so many new kinds of foods. Once you get out of the “American” way of thinking that every meal needs bread, or that sweets can’t taste good without sugar, you can really start to see that there is so much more to food than starch and sugar. Eating Paleo has also liberated me. I have gone through times where I was obsessed about the number of calories I ate, or the amount of fat something had in it. I now know that fat-free means LOADED with sugar…and that fat is not bad for us. I have lost 25lbs eating fat. I eat lots of fat. I cook with coconut oil liberally. I eat avocados. I don’t feel guilty for reaching for a 3rd or 4th piece of bacon. I even sometimes don’t trim the fat on our steak off. Fat is good. Our brains are mostly fat. Our bodies need fat.

Do I spend more money on food every week? If you are comparing our weekly budget to what I spent when I was crazy couponing a few years ago, then yes. I spend much more. If you compare our budget to what I spent when we were eating real, unprocessed (but not completely Paleo) foods, then no. I spend the same. Thankfully, I do not have to be really strict with our budget. We are extremely frugal in many areas of our life. We buy everything used. We sell things we don’t use. I also try to live very naturally, so I make a lot of our cleaning and daily hygiene products from scratch. If we spend more than $100 one week, I don’t freak out. I spent $150 this week, which is on the higher end of what I spend weekly, however, we needed things like toilet paper, a few cleaning products, and paper towels (which we mostly use for the animals and our new, litter-training kitty is burning through them). I haven’t been able to convince my husband to give up toilet paper yet!

Do I eat all organic? Nope. In fact, I would venture to say that I eat mostly “un”organic. I do get organic vegetables IF they are on sale. We do eat grass-fed beef because we bought a whole cow and split it with a few families keeping 1/4th of the cow for ourselves. This costs us $4.50lb and will last us all year. I sometimes find pastured chickens on sale at a nearby grocery store and I snag a few. Thankfully, we don’t have to worry about dairy anymore. I buy the So Delicious or Silk brand of coconut milk for my daughter to drink a few times during the day and for us also to use in our smoothies. I transitioned my daughter from raw cow milk to coconut milk when we went Paleo. Our eggs come from a local farmer (the same one we get our grass-fed beef from) that has free-range chickens and costs $2.50 dozen. We go through about 10 dozen eggs a month.

How do I feed my working husband? I boil eggs every week for him to grab. I have fruit always handy and ready to grab on the way out the door. I make a larger dinner and he takes the leftovers to work for lunch. I make hash, egg cupcakes, meat and spinach muffins for quick breakfasts on the go.

How do I have time to cook 3 meals a day and spend time with my kids? We eat easy breakfasts together. I grab our griddle throw things on it for breakfasts like eggs, bacon, sausage, or ham lunch meat. If we don’t have a griddle breakfast, then I usually make a smoothie for everyone. Even my 8 month old enjoys these. I always have frozen bananas or strawberries on hand and I just make a simple smoothie. I sometimes sneak in coconut oil, flax-seed, or raw egg yolks for added nutrition.

What do we drink? That’s easy…LOTS of water and an occasional milk. Me and my husband take a Fiberblend every night and we use apple juice for that (only because we CANNOT take it without juice…it’s really disgusting, like dirt). Our 3-year-old loves her coconut milk and I give her that about twice a day.

What do we snack on? Honestly, we don’t snack anymore. Our 3-year-old does, but me and my husband find that our protein and veggie packed meals really keep us full for a long time. For my 3-year-old I keep beef jerky, nuts, fruit leather, and fresh fruit on hand for when she is hungry. Her preschool teacher had a little meeting with me last week and told me that she has never seen a 3-year-old eat so much and so many kinds of healthy foods. She agreed that kids will eat what you give them, especially if you start them off right when they are young, like we did with Arianna. If interested, you can see some great kid lunch ideas on my Pinterest page: https://pinterest.com/jackieritz/arianna-s-lunches/ .

So there…there’s a look inside some of our Paleo life. I hope it helps you, encourages you, and motivates you to make some changes in your life, or to continue on the path you are on!

Homemade Body Wash and Toothpaste

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I’ve been buying Kirk’s castile soap for my family. It’s very safe, hypoallergenic, and has like 5 ingredients in it. I love that it’s coconut based too! The only thing though, is that we have been going through almost a bar every week. I am used to body wash…liquid soap. I’m not digging the bar soap. So, I found a recipe online on how to turn a bar soap into body wash! Score! I love Dr. Bronner’s liquid castile soap, but it’s kind of expensive. I keep it on hand to clean the kids with, and to mop the floor with. A little goes a long way with Dr. Bronner’s, but I had 2 bars of Kirk’s soap so I thought I would see how a homemade recipe would turn out. I modified this recipe I found online and here is what I did.

First I grated the bar of soap.

Then I put 6 cups of water in a pot and turned it on. Once it was almost boiling, I added in the grated soap (about 2 cups). I stirred it until it was melted and set it aside to cool for about an hour.

At this point I added in a few TB of coconut oil and about 15 drops of Lavender essential oil. It made a quart-sized mason jar and a pint-sized jar!

I used some of this the other day when showering. It’s nice and works well.  If you’ve ever used Dr. Bronner’s liquid castile soap, then you know that natural liquid body wash has a more “watery” consistency. I am on the look-out for those foaming hand soap dispensers because I would really like to use this soap I made for washing hands too. It should foam up nicely with one of those foaming dispensers!

Homemade Toothpaste

On to homemade toothpaste! Ok so this was a big step for me. To make something I lather on my body is one thing, but to make something that I actually put inside my mouth is another. Then I realized how silly this logic is. I’m trying to live more sustainably, so I need to trust myself more and trust that God gave us all we needed when He made us and the earth. I’m really trying to live more sustainably for many reasons. One, I want to be ready in the even of a Zombie Apocalypse. Two, I want to never run out of things and have to run to the store. And three, I want to show my kids to be dependent on themselves and not the grocery store. So, I found a recipe on Pinterest that uses: 5 Tbs baking soda -4 Tbs coconut oil -About 10 drops of essential oil -Container (Make sure it has a lid. Baking soda will absorb smells if left to open air.) -*You can also add a bit of stevia or other natural sweetener if you’re used to a sweeter toothpaste. I added some stevia and it did make it more palatable. It is definitely different tasting. I didn’t have any peppermint essential oil so I used my lavender essential oil. Gross! It smells good but the taste is hard to take. However, I am going to use it for myself. I know my husband will never use it. He couldn’t even use the Tom’s toothpaste without gagging. I really do like how clean it makes my teeth feel. It doesn’t bubble up and lather like commercial toothpaste does, but those do that because of all the toxic chemicals in it.

I’m really happy with all my homemade, natural products! I’m ordering a few “peri” bottles from Amazon to store them in. I have a bunch of glass mason jars in the shower right now and we all know how dangerous that can be.

All-in-all, I’m excited about my all my new products I’m making. I’m on my first week of doing the “No Poo” hair method, which is using no shampoo to wash with, however, that is a whole new post in itself. I am documenting it and after a month or so I will update you all!