Hormones and Mood

The last of the ice in the woods



After some reflection and alot of reading, I have come to understand my extreme mood swings a little better. In the span of a day I went from hopeless, anxious, mad as hell to calm, energized, enthusiastic. All I needed was my period. This has been a pattern I never picked up on because some months I am fine. If I am exercising and relatively low stress I don't fall apart. There is even a name for it PMDD-premenstrual dysphoric disorder.

There is some interesting info out there on the relationship between estrogen, progesterone and cortisone. Biology is SO cool. The human animal is such a finely tuned machine and then we do things like caffeine and HFCS and hydrogenated oils.

Rose and Christy both have my excited to share the view from my home with you. There will be two 'homes' to view: the suburban house (the home to my body and mind) and our rural escape-my Dad's place (the home to my heart).

We just spent two days of our spring break at ArkWorks Farm and I realized that I cannot be torn between homes. We had planned to split our time this summer between house and camper, with my main gardening efforts at the farm. As much as I love it there, I can't do this-I will be setting myself up for frustration and stress. I can be happy at either place, but not both. We need to choose-the yardstead or the farmstead, I can't and won't try to do both. So another round of discussions for DH and I. This is important, and is worth going over again and again if needs be.

must....have.....coffee

I started my (modified) detox plan by dropping coffee. Even with green tea to ease me through-I enjoyed a crushing headache for three days. I was a royal witch at work on Saturday! Apologies to my employees! Today I feel better, no headache, not tired. I am sleeping better now-no more waking up through-out the night.

I am also trying to eat as much raw food as possible-lots of salads, fruits, raw nuts and water, water, water. I miss sugar! But I do enjoy tasting the texture and naunces of plain yogurt flavored with fruit instead of the too-sweet homogenized Yoplait I usually eat.

I came across an interesting bit of info about protein-(we eat too much of it!), apparently there are cultures who maintain health at 10-25 gram of protein per day. Hmm, think our food pyramid is a little lopsided? I also saw on Yahoo news today, a new study which shows too much red meat and processed meats are bad for you. Really? Huh,who would have thought?
Anyway I feel good, optomistic and ready for the fruit juice fast (2 days max)!

PS Horse manure/wood shavings: I have a good supplier-how do I use? is it too hot to use fresh, I was going to till in fresh manure this spring.
Kris

Detoxification

I need an intervention! I don't like how run-down I feel. I feel closer to 68 instead of 38. My brain is foggy, I often can't find the words I am looking for, my memory is poor (this is NOT a new symptom). I just feel so tired and numb 50% of the time. I know I feel better when I exercise and stay away from simple carbs completely along with limiting even the whole grain carbs. I also feel better with a chance to play and unwind each day. I have gotten into a bad rut-and the difference between a rut and a grave is the depth of the hole!

Long story short-I have 5 days off for spring break and I would like to seize this time to perform some detoxification. I realize that the detox may only be in my head, that there will be some placebo effect gained by the effort of taking control back into my own hands. But rituals are very powerful things.

I am considering a raw food only, limited fast. Any suggestions out there? My herb craft is very rusty, I will be doing alot of research into any suggestions made-no following blindly! I plan to reduce my caffeine and refined foods intake over this coming week leading to my 'spring break'.

In other news-I (minimally) pruned the apple tree, no luck yet in an organic dormant oil. My seeds finally arrived, mostly from Baker's. I will start the tomatoes, peppers and cabbage this weekend (about 9 weeks from our historical frost free date). The solar hot water class is next weekend. Our bunnies got some lovin'. We should see a litter in 30 days! No luck yet on the Silver Fox doe. I also resisted the impulse to buy a new car. My (paid for) 2002 Saturn will do just fine for us for a while longer. I was almost seduced by the new car tax breaks and the hybrid tax credits until I did the math on monthly payments. Told you veterinarians are cheap!! I'll keep putting the payments into savings.

Have You Played Today?

Children do it, animals do it, why have some adults lost the ability to play? Play is using imagination and creativity; getting lost in the flow, carried away even. Play is so important to childhood development and I also argue- to adult happiness. Now don't go play on the monkey bars (unless you want to), but really think about what is fun for you. Where do you find release; where can you loose your self in the moment?
Play has been put on the wayside for many of us. There is alot of pressure in our society to be productive, to accomplish long lists of important things. Play is a guilty pleasure.
Escaping is not play. Escape is trying to drown out your life with something else, like alcohol or food or TV or the internet. I will sometimes escape with a long book-hide out away from my family and escape to another place, and not come up for air until the book is done. There is a fine line between escape and play; play energizes and feels good-escape does not.
I am so guilty of this. I have nearly lost play in my life. I have actually gotten to the point where I don't know what to do on a day off if I don't have (domestic) work to do. My cycles go like this: work, work, work, burning-out, work some more, escape....work, work, work....
Incorporating play into my everyday life is one of my biggest goals, it ranks right up there with learning to grow my own food, and spending time with my kids. If gardening and planting and cooking become all work and no pleasure then what is the point? If I take something which I consider play and overdo it, make it another entry on my to do list then this experiment is for nothing.
Fun for me is horseback riding, drawing and painting, biking, getting lost in a book, flying a kite, planting and gardening. There are more but those are the biggies.
Please tell me how you play! And I challenge you to try to play a little every day!

Against the Current

Making significant life altering change is alot like swimming against the current. Years and years of habit are not changed easily. I am tired, tired of kicking against the current, yet the minute I stop-the waves are pulling at me, nudging me back into the current of our consumer driven culture.

Okay-- overly dramatic, I know!! I'm just tired. It seems like the small daily changes I am making are not enough. It is so easy to just stop at the store, or pick up the phone and dial for carry-out.

On a positive note I did finally get a SQF garden plan put down to paper and seeds ordered. I am most excited by the winter squash varieties-who knew squash came in more than 'acorn' or 'butternut'. They are so beautiful!

This weekend we will prune the apple tree. Does any one have a good handle on organic dormant oil or what I need to do to not have wormy brown spotted apples?