“Happiness cannot be traveled to, owned, earned, worn or consumed. Happiness is the spiritual experience of living every minute with love, grace, and gratitude.”
~Dennis Waitley

I thought this was a FUN little quote to share with you all. I almost went too long again before I posted. Time is just flying right now. I am sure it is the time of year! We are all so busy with the holidays and gathering food and gifts for the upcoming festivities. You might think that we are doing the same thing in our home but….in actuality, we are getting heat put in!! Yeah! We haven’t had it for a few weeks now so we have been carrying electric heaters from room to room. Not so warm! Then with the help of some AMAZING friends and family, we are getting a whole new heating system that should be up and running in the next couple of days. I am so EXCITED! Who knew that Christmas would be so neat because we get heat? (I didn’t mean that to rhyme but kind of fun that it did.) So….my sweet hubby is working hard at doing his normal car business routine on top of really getting going on fixing up our house. This is the BEST Christmas EVER!!

I know with my last post I thanked lots of people. This time I want to say a HUGE thank you to all the people who have gotten involved in putting time and money into really helping us make our house a home. Words really can’t even express our gratitude to you all!! I am not even sure if anyone who is helping will even read this but…..I sure feel good just writing it and sending it out there for whoever to read.

Don’t you just LOVE that quote I posted up top? I was thinking about that quote and comtemplating real happiness. I am sure that the concept it teaches isn’t really new to any of us but do we really believe it? Have we gotten to a place in our lives where we have searched for happiness in other avenues and have yet to find what we are looking for? I sure have!! I think I am just barely getting the idea deep into my heart so I can put it into practice.

It made me think of the Christmas season and all the getting and giving we receive. My family has a blog that we all post on to keep each other abreast of our lives happenings. My brother Brian just recently sent a really cool link to a site that discusses what true consumerism means in our society here and now. On the site, there is a VERY INFORMATIVE and EDUCATIONAL and CUTE little video put together called “The Story of Stuff.” This site has been going around a lot lately so maybe you have already seen it but….if you haven’t, WATCH IT!! I just loved it. Chris and I watched it together, after I had already watched it once with my kids, and the idea isn’t new to us but reinforced what we already believed that really want to apply to our lives. I think it can be beneficial to watch even before we do our Christmas shopping. It might help us to be a little more aware of what we are buying and why we are doing so.

After watching the video, I understood even more deeply where true happiness does come from and how I can bring more of it into my life. We have been taught and trained in such a way that our ideas and concepts of our world are SO ULTIMATELY skewed that it seems almost impossible to turn off the vicious wheel of consumerism and truly learn a better, more peaceful, more productive way of life for all living things. One last thought that doesn’t even apply to what I am talking about here. I am looking our my window right now and it is snowing. OH MY GOODNESS!! It is GORGEOUS! I just had to share that because I was just feeling overwhelmed with how BEAUTIFUL and AWESOME it is!!

Well, for those interested, I have actually been eating more raw food than I have in awhile. I have gone the last several days eating all raw. It has been interesting. I have not purposely chose to really incorporate all raw, it has just kind of gone that way. I have found that eating heavier cooked just DOES NOT even sound good to me. It’s been funny because I will see something cooked and then taste it thinking I will like it but….it ends up tasting really gross to me. I had thought to myself, “Maybe I want to really try to eat 100% strict raw throughout this pregnancy.” Then I came back to where I am at and really enjoying and thought “No way would I want to put any more pressure on myself right now than I can handle.” It was such a refreshing feeling to feel this way. The funny thing though is I still have a hard time with greens unless in a smoothie or covered in a tasty dressing. Even then, who knows if I will like it. LOL!!Plus, even when I eat cooked I must admit, I feel it is still very healthy and good for me. I stay away from processed foods and everything I eat is a whole food with very little, if none, additives or preservatives. I thought about keeping up with the charting of what I eat but unless I write it down, I have a hard time always remembering.
I will tell you that right now I am LOVING my fresh squeezed OJ. This is my favorite time of year and that is one of the reasons. I drink TONS everyday and it is YUMMMMMYYYYY!! I must go now because my nausea is kicking in and I want some OJ!

Peace to you all,
Rachel