On With the Grub!

While I'm home, I'm working on two main projects.

Project One: Integrate mindfulness into every moment of my life.

Project Two: Feed my mother good vegan food.

Both are large and both require a lot of my attention. In fact, Project One requires all of my attention, but we'll revisit that one at a later date. Project Two is something that I'm very blessed to be spearheading. The seeds of this tree of change took root when my mother visited me in Beijing; I cooked her 7 days of beautiful vegan fare, sparing no amount of love or skill. She was so pleased that, upon hearing of my return home, she requested that I take her meals out of my brother's meat covered hands and do for her again what i did in Beijing.

I am now lucky enough to be cooking all of my mother's meals, all vegan, and all gluten free. This is something that I've wanted to do for years, something I thought I'd have to haggle my way into if i was going to get it at all- but low and behold, patience is, if not a virtue, at least fruitful. I'm making all my mother's meals, filling them with love and wholesome nutrition. And I couldn't be happier about doing it.

Below is a menu of the last 6 or so days, to give you an idea of the how things are starting out. In fact, this is a list of everything I've made for her since we've started this venture. Everything listed is homemade by the hands and heart of yours truly, using only fresh/whole ingredients (all veg/fruit from the farmers market, grains/pulses from Whole Foods)

Thursday (today):
Breakie: Yogurt w/ ground flax/pumpkin seeds, walnuts, cranberries
Lunch: Split Pea Soup, Chickpea/avocado/tomato salad
Snack: Fiberful fruit bar from Trader Joe's, Dark Chocolate
Dinner: Oven Baked Polenta, Curried Split Pea Soup, Chard&Kale Salad w/ Peanut Dressing

Wednesday:
Breakie: Yogurt w/ ground flax/pumpkin seeds, walnuts, pear pieces
Lunch: Chickpea Salad/Curried Potatoes/Salad
Snack: Trail mix, two tangerines from the backyard
Dinner: Split Pea Soup w/ Fresh Cornbread, Shredded Beet/Sesame Salad

Tuesday:
Breakie: Asian Pear, Banana, Dried Cranberries, Walnuts
Snack: Salad w/ walnuts, cranberries, butter lettuce, lemon/EVOO dressing
Lunch: Barley Veg Soup/Salad
Dinner: Chickpea Patties w/ Curried Potatoes and Broccoli

Monday:

Breakie: Yogurt

Snack: Almonds, Cranberries, Dried Apricots

Lunch: Barley Squash Cranberry Almond Risotto

Snack: Avocado/Tomato/Chickpea Salad

Dinner: Fresh Baked Cornbread with Barley Veg Soup

Sunday:

Breakie: Miso/Avocado Rice Noodles

Lunch: Black Beans w/ Brown Rice and Shredded Beet Salad

Snack: Trail Mix

Dinner: Squash Barley Risotto (w/cranberries, celery, almonds)

Saturday:

Breakie: Pancakes! Blueberry Pancakes! Bananas, Mangos, orange juice.

Lunch: Something I've forgotten. Salad?

Dinner: Bowl of Raspberry Yogurt*, chopped bananas, pumpkin seeds, flax seeds, cranberries, walnuts.

Some days we've had desserts of Cinnamin Squash Puree or Honeyed Tangerine, but I can't remember which days.

love&light
jessie, the live in health lady.

Give a little love to the world...

And the healing never stops! You want to know how it is that on the third day after my horrific sprain I’m up and hobbling around, with little pain but lots of trepidation about falling over again? Ok, I’ll tell you!

Let me give you a quick rundown of the situation as it’s been thus far:

(By quick I mean probably too long winded for anyone but my mom to actually enjoy)

Evening of the 9th: I fall down the stairs and brutally sprain my ankle. After assessing the situation and deciding that there is no break, I make the decision to not mention it or send for help, and spend the night alone with my ankle. I do this because I want to direct healing energy to it and make sure that I can fully assess the situation on my own, without anyone else getting into it and clouding my view, my judgement, or my body’s natural healing powers. It is massive amounts of painful. I give it Reiki and lots of love, telling it first that I’m sorry, second that I’m grateful to it, and third that I love it and it is a part of me.

Morning of the 10th: I manage to crawl my way up three flights of stairs to find someone to go next door to the café that my friends run, who then come over to look at me and ask what the hell happened. It bears no weight. It bears no movement, let alone touching. My ankle is very, very swollen, enflamed on both sides, hot to the touch, and I can’t move it beyond a feeble half inch to either side- and even this is brutally painful. Did I mention painful? Did I also mention that I’ve got a really, really high pain tolerance, so all this bitching about painful is legit? Forget about rotating it or turning it in a complete circle; I can wiggle my toes with some difficulty, but not quickly and not with much dexterity. And it hurts.

I am treated to two immensely, earth shatteringly painful massage sessions by Ganga (the mother of the owner of the café), who comes to my room, grabs my ankle and proceeds to forcefully massage all the tendons and tissues that are inflamed- she also grabs each toe in turn and shakes my entire leg with it. I beg for mercy, and ask her to please dear god stop. Despite this, I feel it is a positive session. The second session that night is painful, but not as bad as the previous one. I don’t say fuck even once (though I do degenerate into repeating, over and over, that it hurts like a bitch). I notice marked improvements in my range of motion and stiffness. She finishes by giving it a warm oil/tumeric rub and then wrapping it in bandage supplied by another friend. My foot officially smells the best it has, possibly ever. I get a Reiki session from a friend who has just been initiated into level two- it feels really good and I get a very positive energy surge straight from my foot up into my heart chakra, which then settles onto the outside of my shoulders. Just typing that, I feel like a blissed out new-agey person, but maybe that’s what I’m turning into. I fall into a much needed sleep.

Morning of the 11th: I wake up and notice that my ankle no longer feels like it is damaged, but feels stiff and sore instead. Unwrapping my ankle- hey! The swelling has gone down considerably. I hobble, assisted, upstairs, where I am informed by a friend who did some research that because my ankle will not bear any weight at all (a little weight is ok, but any pressure is met with horrible horrible agonizing pain), and due to the 48 hours of swelling (I really can’t stress how swollen it was- not only was the whole thing huge, but the right side of my ankle had a half baseball sized lump jutting out of it; the epitome of sexy) I have what is classified as a 3rd tier sprain- the most serious kind you can get, and advised that I should get an x-ray. I decide to wait and see how and if it improves, cause we’re not going to do much with the x-ray info either way, save know that I need to elevate it and not put weight on it- two things I fully intend to do anyway. I sit at the café for the whole day, chatting with Vikki (owner and son of Ganga) and drinking his strong ginger tea. Ganga comes by and massages the ankle, which is painful but not near the excruciating ordeal of the previous day. Through the day I have the constant urge to stretch and rotate it, which doesn’t hurt but instead, GASP, feels good. That night (or rather, tonight at the time of writing), Ganga sends a man into the jungle to find a specific leaf, gives me the massage (much less painful than even the morning session), rubs in hot (hot hot hot ouch of my god that burns! Is my skin crisping under this shit?) oil and tumeric, wraps my oil/tumeric covered ankle is said leaf, and then wraps the whole ordeal in a bandage- rather like a sprained ankle/tumeric/jungle leaf burrito, if you will.

And directly after the massage session- I can walk on the ankle. Let me repeat: I CAN NOW WALK ON THE ANKLE. Well, walk is an optimistic term- lets go instead with hobble. But dude, seriously…that’s such a massively vast improvement in 2 days time that I can’t even believe it. Everyone that saw my ankle two days ago visibly flinched and asked if it was broken. It was gnarly. And painful. Painfully gnarly.

This morning: The ankle can now rotate, and i can still walk on it. Well, I can hobble on it. Through the love and energy of Ganga, her son, my friend Caitlyn, myself, and the universe, my ankle is healing very well and very beautifully. And you know what, I'm okay with the injury and okay with the time it's taking to heal- long or short. Yes, of course short is better, but I'm learning so much through this process that I can only be thankful it happened. And i mean that.

Intense.

love&light
Jess