The Juicy Life--Day 24 of My 40 Day Juice Feast

What Day I'm On: 24 out of 40, 60% of the way

It is Sunday again, and time to focus on gratitude! (I just love Sunday!) Actually, I do gratitude work every day (I'm that lucky! lol) but Sunday is the day that I blabber on about it in my blog. :)

First good news is about my car, which decided to take up SMOKING on Friday! I called Stanley, my awesome mechanic. Stanley is from Jamaica, and that's where he learned to fix cars. He said in Jamaica, all the cars are really old because it costs so much to import new ones, and people just hold on to their cars "fahevah mon." And so Stanley is uniquely qualified to keep old cars running, ad infinitum, and to do it on the super cheap. Which makes him uniquely qualified to be my mechanic! Plus, he makes house calls! Who does that, right? Stanley does. So Stanley came over and saw exactly what the problem was (a bad hose. It hadn't taken up smoking, it was just steaming mad at me. :) And since my car is really old, and this is the 2nd hose he's had to replace lately, he just went ahead and replaced all the other hoses. And only took 2 hrs (including time spent running to the parts shop) and only charged me $60. I'm telling you, every single mom should have a Stanley!

So today I thank God for wheels that get my family where we need to go safely, for a non-smoking car, and for Stanley, a great mechanic and a heckuva nice guy. Bonus: It's rally ke-wel to hear him talk, mon!

My second thing I'm going to spout gratitude about today is about healing. As most of y'all know, Joe is my 15 yr old son and he had a major surgery on his back in June to correct severe scoliosis (crooked spine, and in his case, a small hunchback.) His surgeons had told us this was a rough operation for boys especially, and that he would probably be on narcotics up to six months to handle the pain. And at first, it was really tough, all he could do was lay down because the pain was excruciating when he'd try to sit. Still, he chose to only take pain medicine for about 3 wks, not 6 months. And he has been faithfully doing his rehabilitation exercises, as well as getting plenty of rest and as much raw food as he will let me poke down him.

I had been really worried that when school started again, next week, he wouldn't be able to sit for a whole day in class, that it would be too painful. But, right on time, about 2 wks ago, he started to be able to sit for longer and longer periods of time with no pain! And now, it is almost as if he had never even had the operation! He is still restricted from a lot of activities: bending at the waist, lifting more than 10 pounds, twisting ("It's really interfering with my yoga!" he quips) but I feel confident he's going to be able to get through school just fine.

As if that were not enough to be thankful for, my mom, who's had a non-healing ulcer on her foot since, I dunno, 3 yrs now? Suddenly started having some healing in it! I've gone over to her house 2-3 times a week to change the dressing ever since she got out of the hospital. She started out with two huge wounds: one on her heel, the size of a peach, and one on the top of her foot, the size of a large grape. (Can you tell I want some fruit?!) Anyway, we already got her heel wound healed, which took me about 2 yrs of trying every natural treatment I had ever heard of for hard to heal wounds. But the top of her foot has worse circulation so it wasn't getting any better and had worsened slightly. Until the last couple of weeks--I've been using ionized water and bee propolis on it, and it did look like it was getting slightly better. Then she went to the doctor, and he said, actually, it's gotten quite a bit better since he last checked it! Yay! Another victory for perserverance!

So I am grateful for this season of healing and for our miraculous bodies, designed by God to take such good care of us if we get out of their way!

How's It Going: Ack, these last few days have been rough. I have a headache, a backache, a belly ache, and temptation has been rearing it's ugly head, a lot. Yesterday, I almost broke my fast over a steamed green bean. A green bean, people! It just looked really, really good, and I wanted it. I wanted it! I've tried adding ginger to my juice for the aches and pains, but I don't notice any change. I don't want to bellyache about it anymore (hee) but I could sure use some prayers if you are so inclined.

What I'm Drinking: I added in a little bit of fruit juice to sweeten up my veggie juice, and can I just say? That first drink of pure watermelon juice was heaven. So sweet and so refreshing! I had several good gulps of it before I adding the rest to my veggie juice. I've not had the dizzy space cadet feeling since taking good advice and adding in the fruit juice. And heck mcdoodle, watermelons sure make a lot of juice! They make juicing a lot more economical. And tasty!

To all my friends-in-the-computer, I hope you have a wonderful week and keep it raw and green! Remember to love yourself, and then go love everybody else just for good measure!