The year is at its end. Much has happened this past year; much good, some sad, lots of change. I am optimistic about next year and all that it may bring. I am especially optimistic when it comes to my health and the choices I continue to make concerning it.

In just a few weeks I will celebrate my sixtieth birthday. That age used to sound very old, but it doesn’t anymore. In fact, I still feel young in many ways even though my body tells me that some things aren’t really so easy to do anymore. But, I do take delight with all the compliments that I have received the past few months because they have been spoken by a variety of people and they say pretty much the same. Everyone compliments my complexion and how healthy I look! Most of the grey hairs have returned to my normal brown and my skin remains wrinkle free. I have great food choices to praise for that! One of those choices is to buy only ORGANIC fruits and vegetables.

I still have a smoothie almost every day and have for many months. The smoothies have changed from a cottage cheese or tofu and flax seed oil based fruit smoothie to a fruit smoothie with celery and romaine lettuce included. The smoothie amounts have also changed from one 16 ounce glass to 2-3 sixteen ounce glasses a day. The smoothies are probably the biggest difference I have made diet-wise this past year.

Salads also make up a large part of my overall daily food intake. That is another big change over the previous years. Sometimes the salad is fairly simple. Most times it is a large meal in its own right with a variety of foods other than just the lettuces, herbs, and spinach. Oftentimes I will add shredded carrots, slice sweet red and green peppers, shredded red and green cabbage, chopped onion, shredded broccoli stems, broccoli florets, pumpkin seeds, sliced or slivered almonds, and about 1/3 cup of pulse. Pulse is a mixture of 23-25 all natural and raw ingredients including fruits, seeds, oils, and vegetables all ground up together and extracted. It adds a nice sweet taste to the salads. Also, I really like the olive oil dressing I make that also incorporates flaxseed oil and grapeseed oil with dry mustard, dill, tarragon, thyme, and garlic powder all blended together.

I have also begun sprouting seeds again. When life gets hectic, I put it off and then the time passes by and I have no sprouts. We had a cold spell in November and the sprouts didn’t do well in the kitchen. Now the temperatures have moderated and another batch of the salad mixture and one of broccoli are in the process of becoming sprouts. I like to add sprouts to my salads and on the rare occasion that I fix a sandwich, I like to add them there too.

Soon some sprouting bags I ordered should arrive. I bought some rye berries, soft red wheat berries, and spelt berries (all organic of course) to sprout and use to make some special breads in my dehydrator. The bags are also good for sprouting the beans such as adzuki. Anyway, they are made of flax so they should last quite a while.

I am having so much fun as I become healthier. There are still health issues that I am dealing with such as my blood pressure refusing to come anywhere near normal. And my morning body temperature is still below 97.0 which indicates that my thyroid isn’t doing its job, and the adrenals are still very low in activity. BUT, I am still feeling so much better now that I have for many years. Those issues will eventually be taken care of and then, watch out world! Can you imagine how I will be feeling when everything is working properly?

Can’t close without making reference to Shadeaux. She is still adorable, energetic, growing rapidly, and follows me like a shadow. We did choose a very appropriate name for her.

Well, this is all for this year. Hope yours has been very good to you and that next year will be even more so. Take care. Until next time………………