HAPPY 10 YEAR ANNIVERSARY TO ME AND CLIFF!

Hiya Ladies,

How are you all today?

I'm looking at my beautiful greeting card from Cliff on this 10 year anniversary of being together. We met on Sept 22nd 10 years ago and see this day as a very great confirmation of our love for each other. We've been engaged for two years and will be tying the knot one of these days...

My honey is such a rascal. I was so surprised to find roses in my car yesterday, a bottle of wine (it's raw!) and a beautiful card. He snuck them into the car while we were both out teaching in Chestnut Hill. What a surprise! What really makes the card cute are the pictures...i wish you could see them, but my camera battery is dead!

"Honey, we used to have a lot of fun without a lot of fuss...we stretched a bit to make ends meet - it didn't bother us. Although we've been through thick and thin, there's not a thing we've lacked. And through the years we've kept our wits and sanity intact. So on our anniversary, there's not a shred of doubt - your love's the only thing on earth i couldn't live without!!!"

Ain't love grand???

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

So....how've I been??? STILL STRESSED, unfortunately... I've always wanted to be honest here and know that sometimes that means I will bum others out. I'm so sorry if i do. I just feel this is a place for me to be able to 'come clean.'

Honestly, I've been extremely overwhelmed and emotional and unbalanced since the Beckwith event. Housework was on hold, LIFE was on hold while I slept away for almost a week and sunk into massive food prep with Susan. Now that the event is over, my house is a mess and my fridge a disaster. We overbought celery and i have at least 10 celery in there....as well as tons of other leftover veggies. My plan is to juice with these leftover veggies. Yet that "rebellious" thing in me...doesn't WANT to. It would be the BEST thing for me, to help me restore balance, so why do i resist?????

I've been doing pretty poorly with the food as we had gourmet raw leftovers and leftover cooked hummus from the event also, which i've been eating for days, and not in a very controlled manner. I haven't weighed myself in 2 weeks and frankly, am fearful to.

I'll be celebrating my 3rd anniversary of raw in November and this is the first that i've ingested cooked beans. I honestly didn't feel ANY negative consequences from eating them. My thinking was: "Cashews aren't really raw...so what's the difference???? At least cooked beans have a lot less FAT." Honestly, i've had no negative consequences from the beans. No terrible gas. I'm not even frightened that this will snowball into hamburgers. i don't think they are driving me nuts. I think it's more about the olive oil and the sesame seeds in the hummus. It's the FAT...not the beans.

Whether i want to continue this practice of eating cooked beans has not been decided. I do have black bean brown rice salad in my fridge which Cliff has been eating. I did not touch that because instinctually i KNOW that eating cooked rice would not be a good thing for me. I wouldn't be able to stop. The beans, however, i will see.

I'm also feeling very stressed as i have 4 big vocal concerts coming up. The first rehearsal is this Sunday. Because of the gourmet and overall fat overload, i have a pretty HORRENDOUS case of reflux laryngitis.

My body shows me it hates the extra fat, but my taste buds love it. I'm feeling discouraged and unable to get back on track.

What IS back on track????

I feel 'confused' again about food. We made this amazing gourmet raw food for everyone at the party to love. I loved it. It all tasted amazing.

If i could CONTROL that kind of food, life would be no problem. Choosing gourmet over ascetic 80-10-10 would be a non issue. I'd be like everyone else. Enjoying the marvelous variety of gourmet raw foods and feeling blessed daily.

What happens, though, is that i basically cannot control myself around this food. I almost ALWAYS go overboard.

I'm getting sick of reporting the same thing over and over.

"Make peace with it.....stop eating it....or stop talking about it," a voice inside of me says.

I'm so sorry to not be perfect, to not be cured yet. I need it. You need it. We all need to be inspired and i don't feel like an inspiration.

My only hope is that through all of this STRUGGLE with food, i will ultimately FIND BALANCE, FIND what works for me and be able to share that with you.

My intuition says that 80-10-10 is the answer for ME because my singing voice is so positively affected by this lowfat diet, as is my weight problem.

There is this little thing in me that feels like dying when i talk about this. What is it? My ego? My sensuality? My pleasure source?

I remember that in Christianity they say that 'dying' is being reborn. In all of this pleasure seeking, have i actually gotten any better? no.

xoxoxo michelle joy