Because I love you :]

This started out as an e-mail to a friend, but then I realized it was so so much more....







I am looking into unpasteurized milk for Linky.  This might sound crazy, and a year ago, heck even six months ago, I'D have thought it was crazy!!

But I'm looking into the facts, and I'm getting a really sour taste in my mouth!  Let me begin with this…

They inject a bacteria into corn that produces a toxic pesticide in each cell of the corn.  That's where we get a lovely "GMO".  You are basically eating a pesticide that can't be rinsed off or removed by any means shy of chucking it in the garbage!  It's shown to have really negative effects on human cells and lab mice.

You can read about it here if you want.

(The solution?  Buy organic or farmer's market… I hate giving scary information with no mode of action).

So I knew GMOs were bad.  That kind of propelled me forward in my search about unpasteurized, or "raw" milk.  

I know that a looooot of people are lactose intolerant today, but when they drink raw milk, they're not.  I'm really concerned about what I'm putting in Lincoln's body.  And ever since I was introduced to some facts about raw milk, I've kind of danced around the possibility that we might give it to Lincoln.

But before I'd EVER consider doing that (in light of the bad rap it gets), I need to SCOUR the internet, books, and whatever other resources I can possibly find to ensure that I'm making a good decision.  Partner that with TONS of prayer, and I'm hoping to find what God wants me to do.

But I digress.

Basically, I'm not sure what you think of raw milk, if you've ever even heard of it, or if you think I'm crazy (well, of course you DO, but I mean for this!!).  But I was thinking today about how you've sent me things that concern you, and I know you genuinely want to do what's best for your family and you want the people you love to have the facts too.

I've been kind of nervous about sharing all of my "crunchy nutter" stuff with you, especially since I kinda teased my sister about a lot of it!  ;]  But you shared something with me that you felt was really important, and it kind of convicted me.  I want to share this with you because, like I said, I love you.  And before my sister ever told me any of this, I didn't know.

I don't know what the right choice for your family is, but I DID want to send over some of the things I'm finding to you.

Over the last 8 months or so, I've been experiencing a transformation I can only call God-ignited.  I've been sort of quiet about it because I know a lot of things can be looked upon skeptically.  The unfortunate reason I know this is because I was like that about my sister.  And I wasn't very loving at all.  I basically thought she was "ridiculous" for a lot of her beliefs and the changes I saw in her.

I'm infinitely sorry about the hard time I gave her for all these changes in her life.  Honestly, I was just ignorant.  I feel very humbled.  But still, I've been very quiet about my lifestyle changes.

It started out with deodorant.  I realized that the premise of deodorant is filling your pores with aluminum to prevent sweat from exiting your body.  As I stopped to consider it, I didn't feel like this was how God designed our bodies to work.  And putting aluminum in my body didn't seem harmless, like shaving my legs or something like that.  This alteration to my bodily functions seemed logically harmful.  It seemed bad.  So I started making my own deodorant.  I loved that I could even customize my scents with essential oils that help further the benefits!  

This was a great first step for me, I think, because I love creating.  I was able to personalize my deodorant and come up with something that smelled amazing enough to eat (I have pictures of myself almost doing it!! ;]) but worked surprisingly well!  It was functional art, if you will!!  ;]

Then a couple months later, I was eating a pop tart, and Linky was looking at me, and I just KNEW he wanted some.  My reflexive thought was "I'm not giving you any!  It's horrible for you!!"

In that moment, I suddenly had a life-altering realization: Why am I putting this trash in my own body when I wouldn't feed it to my child?

I slowly - SLOWLY, still terrified - started to try to make some positive changes.

-Shop at the Farmer's Market when possible… but buy organic when not.. 

• Okay, so this was a fun one, so it wasn't hard to accomplish.  A good starter change!

-Oh no, GMOs!  And packaged ingredients, and processed foods (within reason).  

• I simply veer away from recipes that call for a package of cream cheese and a package onion dip, and a bottle of dressing.  I hardly use any packaged items anymore, and am still working to eradicate them from my kitchen - my next big project is homemade taco season since we use it like water!!

-OMG, MSG?!

• I started actually READING product labels, a radical change for me... if the picture looked good, I used to buy it!  A lot of seasoning packets can get away with MSG... monosodium glutamate... just be on the lookout for it.  Even if you never encounter it, ensuring you don't bring it in to your home is a big step.

-Avoiding cellulose

• Yes, a lot of my changes are inconvenient... massively?  I should say not.. so what is cellulose, and why avoid it?  Cellulose is a food additive.  It is microscopic wood pulp or other plant fibers.  So why avoid it?  Do you regularly enjoy swallowing bark?  In my opinion, I bought cheese... I want cheese.  Not cheese and a laundry list of unknowns...  So what's my solution?  I buy two blocks of cheese, shred them into ziplocs with my salad shooter, mark the date, and refrigerate one while I freeze the other...  Super inconvenient?  Well, if I don't have ten minutes or less to spare once every couple weeks, then yes...

-Try to buy "one ingredient" foods 

• e.g., apple, banana, orange

-Avoid chemical laden products within reason

• I switched to a better mascara, stopped using scented lotions, bought a more natural chapstick.  These are scaffolded changes in my opinion, because I recently got rid of all my scented lotions, I'm moving toward an even BETTER completely natural chapstick, I switched to an even BETTER mascara...  I took small steps that made each consecutive step that much less terrifying!  I realized I'm not giving up things I love or need... I'm trading them in for something immeasurably better!

Then after a while, I started feeling more comfortable with bigger, more meaningful changes:

-Buy steel cut oats because they are less processed

• This was a recent, scary change for me, and I love them!  Now, I don't know what I was so afraid of!!  I know I still have more research to do, but I know my Sissy won't let me down, and I will find out what is good and what is not!

-Consider making my own chicken and beef stock

• Which I still haven't done yet because I want to do so with an organic chicken

-Stop using canned soups in recipes and try to make my own when possible 

• Cream of _______ is now homemade mushroom soup, frozen and kept for later use!  You see?  We got a tasty meal PLUS a resource for later!

-Start a small stockpile

• Saving up diced tomatoes, rice, beans, and other staples that could help get us through a job loss, huge unexpected expense, blizzard, or catastrophe

-Make my own laundry detergent 

• This was a big one… I was terrified and avoided it for a long time…  I finally did it, and it was super easy, cheap, and now I have laundry detergent that works better than store-bought for about a year!!!  The boot in the butt?  My sister gave me the required components!  And didn't let me off the hook!!  She knew it was something I wanted to try, and she encouraged me!  She reminded me to get a bucket when she was on the phone with me while I was at the store... she reassured me probably 20 times it wasn't as hard as I thought it was... I could do it... it's amazing!!  :]

-Become less dependent on grocery stores

• In other words, start my own garden!!  Which, as you know, I am currently in the process of!

-Be more willing to do more, better.....

• And what that means is that, if I truly believe that nursing is so amazing for Lincoln, why am I going to let societal standards dictate my decisions?  I'm not gonna do that!!  I'm gonna nurse for however long I and LINCOLN are comfortable with!!  I am going to allow baby-led weaning to take it's course!!  He will gradually shift from dependence on my milk to dependence on solid foods.  If his body decides to rely on milk calories for longer, who am I to refuse him?  Now after a certain point, yes… I think weaning is appropriate if he doesn't wean himself.  But at this point, I'm WILLING to go longer than a year… something that, a year ago, I'd have judged others for… and I am so sorry about that.

-Get de-fluoridated!!!  

• I discovered that fluoride is pervasive!!  You can't get away from the stuff!!  And considering that it was originally used in RAT poison… I want to try to eliminate as much as possible!!!  So we got Sparklett's home filtration system to de-fluoridate (and remove a lot of other undesirables!!)

-More recently, I decided to try Earthpaste… 

• This is one I'm still super scared to admit because I haven't tried it, and am, quite frankly, still skeptical about.  But breaking and/or challenging the norm is what I'm all about now, right?!  Reinventing my idea of "normal" is hard.  Having holes in my teeth, watching my child suffer from my decisions, or causing bad health for my family is harder!!

-Cleaning products

• Out with the old, chemical laden, toxic, headache-inducing, made-in-a-factory-from-the-Lord-only-knows-what; in with the REAL and even EDIBLE products that clean my house better than anything I've ever found on the conventional market!!  Vinegar, hydrogen peroxide, baking soda, dish soap (sans triclosan, thankyouverymuch, and thank YOU Method!!), and alcohol!  This little artillery has bested any product I've ever used from a conventional cleaning product company!  And you know what-- I don't have to keep most of these items under lock and key for fear that my child will have a deadly encounter with them.  Some can even be stored in a pantry!!  Combined with a little essential oil, I get to customize my own cleaning experience and can ENJOY breathing in the smell -- not get a dizzy headache from it!!

-Composting - and where's the poo?  

• Lol… no, but really.  I'm gonna start making something of my trash.  Cutting down on about half my garbage, saving money on compost, ensuring that my compost is organic as much as possible, doesn't have strange, free radicals floating about, and is preventing a lot of good from being mixed in with the bad to rot in a landfill, useless to all.  Also, instead of buying from a store, I found local resources for aged horse manure and wood chips for my garden!  Neato and free!!!

All this brings me to my final and most recent hat in my feather of cray cray crunchiness!!  

Unpasteurized milk

• My strongest argument for this is that if they have to pasteurize the milk because it's dirty… the milk comes from cows living one on top of another, eating the Might Monsanto's toxic grain…  Why would I want to drink that dirty milk???   but… OH! Don't worry, we killed the bad at the cost of the good… When, instead, I could drink clean milk that is religiously tested and regulated by a private entity with no ulterior motives afoot?
• Now, like I said earlier -- I haven't made an ultimate decision yet.  Because the different side of the same coin, my strongest argument against raw milk is what if I inadvertently hurt my child or my husband?  That's the most terrifying thought in the world!!!!  But, am I going to let fear of doing the right thing keep me here, treading possibly dangerous waters?  No.  I'm not going to keep my head in the sand and not look into the facts because raw milk seems scary.  I'm not going to continue doing the convenient or the "normal" because the change might be the best thing for me, but terrifies me.

Not anymore.

I'm done burying my head in the sand.  And the e-mail you sent me just gave me the bravery to finally come out with my life.  Even if it took me a little while.

I once would have just run away from the things that scared me and continued doing what I've always done, because that's how I've always done it.  But I'm not that person anymore.  I'm a mom.  I'm responsible to keep one of God's most precious little ones alive.  And healthy.  I'm a wife.  My husband relies on me to make good decisions for our family.  He needs me to research and figure out what works best for us.

I have begun making those changes.  And I was terrified to tell anyone.  Realistically, I haven't told anyone except for my mom, sister, husband, and sister-in-law.  Three of those were by default because two live with me, and one gave me the information in the first place!!

But I think I'm ready.  And whether I am or not, I think I need to.

Another thing that helped make the change for me was this: today, my sister asked me how much of my decision to make some changes was prompted by her.  I hadn't thought about it too much, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized-- a lot!

If it hadn't been for her, yes-- I'd probably have come to the realization that a lot of the way I was living wasn't right.  And I wasn't okay with what I was doing.  

But, I'd have had no where to go from there.  

But because my sister faced countless scowls of disapproval, teasing from her family, and sniggers across the dinner table about her latest "crunchy" idea, I knew where to go.  The path had been set out before me.  She was there, just up the path, calling me onward!

There are some things that she has decided are right for her, that I have still chosen to steer the other direction from.  And that's fine!  And that's why, if you read this and decide to steer away from what's right for me, I will understand!!  I'm not offended.  I'm not upset.  In fact, I'm ecstatic!!

I'm ecstatic, just because you took the time to read my heart.  You are listening to my thoughts and considering them for yourself, and what that might mean for you and your family.

If you ever come to a point where you want to make a change, I will be there at the other end of the path, rooting for you!  Calling you forward!  Giving you encouragement and love.  Helping you when you feel overwhelmed, being a resource to you in times of need.  Figuring things out WITH you that we both need guidance on!  Just like my sister has done for me.

But if you decide not to travel a path that I've taken in a certain area, guess what!  that's okay!  You know why?  Because there is no greater comrade than me.  I've been in your shoes.  I know what it's like not to know about - or (a little ashamed to say) even care about - any of this.  I've probably been in a place further than you where I was actually blatantly skeptical and unyielding about any of it.  Hard-headed!

But I felt convicted today.  Because if my sister had never exposed herself and shared with me the changes she's made, I'd have had no one to turn to when I was scared about grains, raw milk, or gardening.  I'd have had no one to hand me just the resources I needed to kickstart my journey.  I'd be sitting in a corner somewhere, terrified of EVERYTHING, overwhelmed by the thought of washing soda, arrowroot powder, and pthylates.

I'd not only be scared of the things I realized I needed to change, but I'd be terrified of the changes themselves!!  I still get scared of things.  But now, instead of remaining scared, I make a change.

Instead of being scared, I am empowered.  I have taken control over my life, my food, my environment, and my future.

I don't want you to change… unless you want to.  What I want is for you to have the facts and make the right decisions for your family.  So I hope you'll know that, in the future, I'm going to try to be more open with my lifestyle changes.  And I know you'll be excited and interested, because that's who you are.  You are so loving and non-judgmental, and when I think about it, I don't know why I was ever scared in the first place.

I suppose I was most afraid because I know how nutty I thought my sister was.  ;]  And I know -- I KNOW -- there are people who are gonna think that about me.  And a lot of those people won't have that lens of love to look through like you do for me and I did for my sister.  I know that if I didn't tell ANYONE, I wouldn't have to deal with that.  But it's worth it if you or any of my other loved ones can find some direction in a time of need, just like I had.

I want to share this with you, since we share everything.  I no longer want this to be a portion of my life I keep tucked away.  I want to share this with everyone.  Not in a condemnation kind of a way.  But I won't refrain from sharing my changes with people when it comes up in conversation and I have the opportunity to share.

I will receive judgment, but I know that it will never come from you.  Even if you think an idea is crazy, I've never felt anything but a surprising and amazing respect from you.  I know that will continue.  My friendship with you is unlike any I've ever had before.  I am so SO grateful to God for you!  I never knew how many sisters a girl could have.  God has blessed me within my blood line and so far beyond it as well!  What a fortunate woman I stand here today!!

So I hope that as I share my giddy excitement about tossing trash in my yard, spending ludicrous amounts of money on bulk rice, and swapping my conventional products for nuttery new ones, you aren't overwhelmed.  And in fact, that you are excited for me!

I know the overwhelmed feeling, watching someone ahead on the path trudge up insurmountable cliffs… I still listen to my sister talk about "modern homesteading", raising chickens, worm bins, and home births and it makes my head spin a little!!  

I'm excited for her… but she's way ahead of me, and has already made her decisions on those things.  I haven't even gotten to the point of making a decision on some of those things, and am decidedly no on others of them!  But I experience so much guidance from her.  It's invaluable to have that resource you innately trust.  I hope that if you DO decide to make any changes, you'll look to me.  I'd love to help you.  Because I love you :]