Take a seat..we need to talk

It has been too long since my last post.  A ton has happened since...oh about 2 years ago now... and I am a mother of two amazing 18 month old twin boys.  They truly are the light of my life.  Before, I would always come to you about healthy eating and how to make oh so yummy dishes. This time it's going to go a little different.  Don't get me wrong that was fun, but now I think its time for a change.  It has nothing to do with you ....and all to do with me...really.

That being said......we need to talk.  These past 7 weeks my heart has been aching, and when I say aching I mean I can literally feel the pain jumping through my chest.  It is for something so much bigger than myself.  A little boy not but 4 months older than my own babies is having the fight of his life.  I know, I know, PLEASE not a ANOTHER sad story posted on the blogosphere or somebody's Facebook page.  After a while it gets exhausting and frankly too hard to read every single story or hard time someone is going through.  So, why is my story different then, because I actually care about this one.  Yes, yes you can call me a horrible person and say "you mean you don't care about the countless other stories and tragic events you read or hear?"  And the answer is No.  If I'm being honest it is very hard for me to sympathize with every single unjust thing that happens because there are so many of them.  I have learned to shut myself off from them and not let them take root.  Now, you may look at me and think that's a bad thing, to close yourself off from the world like that, and I agree it is, but you see I have this what I like to call "super power", I tend to listen to heart-wrenching stories and quite literally take on the burden of the person that is going through it.  AND. IT. IS. EXHAUSTING. I have learned over the years that God has blessed me with such a deep care for peoples stories so I can pray for them and give the burden to God, but if I'm not careful I take the burden on myself and well, that makes me a quite sad and moody individual. 

So let me tell you about Maksim.  I don't even know him, but I feel like he's one of my own.  Maybe that's because my "super power" is kicking in or maybe its because his eyes remind me of my own baby, Dax.  Whatever it is I feel very connected to this little guy and his story. Even now, as I am typing this my heart is aching and also smiling for how far he is coming in his process.  Maksim was rushed to the hospital New Years Eve.  The Dr.'s came to the conclusion that Maksim had contracted E-Coli and it was impairing his life severely.  Maksim's kidneys were failing and they had to put him on dialysis.  They also had to remove a lot of his intestine and colon as it was found to be dead.

When I read the news on this little baby boys journey I immediately wept and begged God to save him. Save him from all the pain he is feeling and doesn't know why.  Save him because he is so helpless and innocent.  Save him because you are GOD and he is your child.  I felt so tied to Maksim's life and everyday, I have been reminded when I feel that ache in my heart that Maksim holds to lift my hands and pray.  I don't know what is happening at that moment with him in the hospital, if its a good day or a bad day.  If he's weak and barely functioning enough to open his eyes or if he's able to life his head.   That's the thing about prayer.. you have to get outside yourself and ask God to do something you know you have absolutely no control over....I believe its called Faith.

Can I just say this, I have been through a whirlwind myself with relocating nearly a 1,000 miles across the country in the past 7 months with two babies, a husband, a dog and a whole-lotta boxes, but nothing, nothing seemed to hit me like Maksim's story.  I will be honest and say when I needed to "feel" God the most these past few months...I didn't.  When I needed to see a little relief at the end of the day.... I couldn't.  Most of that was my fault as I had not taken the time to be with the lover of my soul.  But one lonely night I read Maksim's post and I realized how short life can be, I asked myself "what the heck would I do if that was me?" And the pain I felt for that little baby so helpless, not knowing why this was happening to him, was too much to bare and I.LOST.IT.  I lost it all, my doubt, my ego, my pain, my childhood baggage, my sense of low self worth, my pride, the way people misunderstood me, who I've always been told I am VS. WHO I REALLY AM.  I am redeemed and at that moment I was set free.  Free from all the things I was carrying around by myself for the past year and free to be who I was always meant to be.. a daughter, a wife, a mother, an entrepreneur, a self-motivated starter, a cook, a quirky, bubbly women with a child-like demeanor. 

Rachel Messerer, we don't even know each other and probably never will, but I want you to know from one mom to another, Maksim restored my faith and relationship with God.  Through this horrific and terrifying experience he is doing something that he isn't even aware yet that he is doing, drawing people closer to where they are suppose to be and glorifying God with his story......so tell him THANK YOU.  Thank you, for helping me to see what truly matters again.  Thank you, for being so strong.  Thank you, for letting God use him.  Thank you, for giving me a chance to not take another moment for granted.  And Rachel, when he's old enough to understand, read him this post and let him know he's changed mine and I'm sure countless others lives with how brave he is.  Tell him HIS STORY is the only thing keeping me in perspective some days.  Tell him Well done good and faithful, well done!

Please DONATE to the Messerer family by clicking on this link: http://www.gofundme.com/prayformaksim

I bid you farewell and good night, till we meet again...

Candace

YOU

Let me start off by saying that it is amazing how great I feel after eating whole REAL foods.  It is really remarkable how your body responds to healthy eating.  I am actually excited about waking up and making healthy choices throughout the day.

I really believe it is imperative to our quality of life by choosing a natural whole lifestyle.  Now that that has been said, let me say this, the way we treat our bodies shows how we view ourselves.  Think about it, you see a nice fit, toned women at a restaurant or out and about, do you really think she got that way by eating a quarter pounder the meal before?  Do you think she would ever even think to order something like that or cook it at home for that matter?  Nope, she is the one ordering a salad, a nice cut of meat and a side of steamed veggies or opting out her white bread for whole grain. It's because she cares about herself, she cares what her body looks like, she cares about her health and most of all she respects herself enough to not waiver.

If you do this, you truly learn to respect yourself and love yourself and learn how to really be happy I promise you others around you will thank you for it.  Once you are happy with who you are and make the decisions that lead to your destiny your family will be better for it, you will be better wives to your husbands, better mothers to your children and better friends.  You can only be one person, why not make it the best you, why not wake up and feel healthy and happy and loved instead of lethargic, sluggish and unwanted?  Is that how you want to live your life?  If you make a decision to do this it's going to make you the person you were always meant to be and your family will be stronger for it, your children will learn from it and you'll be your own biggest fan.  I mean if you're going to be cheering for somebody it might as well be yourself, right?  

I hope we can all take the time for ourselves so that we can be better at all the things we were meant to live for.  Until we meet again, I bid you all a farewell and goodnight!

Warm regards,

Candace

  

 

This is what I like to take on the go when I'm in a rush!  They are not 100% clean and natural but they are pretty close.  I am trying to slowly get myself off of all preservatives : ) and it is a process let me tell you!

This is my Salad w. Goat Cheese, Cucumbers and Red Onion.  Sorry that it is half eaten, whoops ;D

Oh this is just a little ole place I like to call heaven!  I love stopping here on my lunch, it is about a block a way and so fun, I could spend hours in here!

After visiting the co-op I was a little hungry from all that looking so I had a little snacky ;D 

LIFE

Do you ever feel like you've become the worst version of yourself?  All the self-loathing, all the little things you really can't stand about who you are have somehow sprung open and that is all that you can see?  I have felt like the worst version of myself pretty much my entire life.  I don't know where it all stems from exactly but I do know somewhere along the line I made a decision, and that decision set the course for my whole life.

I made a decision to look at myself in total and complete disappointment, disapproval and disgust.  I was my own worst critic, I made up in my mind that I wasn't worthy enough to really be all the things that I knew I was meant to be and I kept believing it.  Well I am here to tell you I have hit my breaking point.  It took me 25 years to figure out that my life actually might just be worth living, who would have thought?!

I know you, whoever you are, are out there and finding yourself in the same position that I was.  That position that makes you ache, that consumes your thoughts, affects your relationships and will eventually destroy everything good in your life because you will never know how to enjoy your life.  You have to get to a point where you decide you are worth loving, and then every single day you find a way to love yourself.  Every single day you look in the mirror and tell you that you are beautiful, that there is no one else that is like you, that there is not one other person that has your smile, there is not one other human being on this earth that could do all those quirky little things you do exactly how you do them..nope not one.

You have to make a decision that you are going to change and then you have to do it.  I know, I know not so easy peasy right?  It will take time, A LOT of time, it will take determination, and it will take the willpower of getting your mind right.  I think I just got to a point where I knew that God made me for so much more than all of this and if I couldn't even love myself then how was I ever going to love anyone else.  For some of you that have been reading my blog in the past you know that I started out doing this as a form of accountability for myself to lose weight and while I still want to get those last few pounds off I have vowed as this whole "Self-Love Movement" to NEVER go on a diet again.  

I know you always hear this, "it's not a diet I am making a lifestyle change", but I have decided I am just way too hard on myself to put my mind and body through another one, soo I have just vowed to eat clean, eat natural, eat healthy, eat the way God intended me to eat.  I have decided to turn my blog into a "Lifestyle Change" :D  No longer will you see me post "40 days of this" or "30 days of that" it will be a "LIFE of this" or a LIFE of that".  I have decided life is way to short to be spending it in torment, and that is really what I was doing to myself, I was in this vicious cycle of never feeling good enough, but really I only have to be good enough for God and I already never will be so the pressure is off! :D No, instead I will spend my time loving myself, loving others and letting joy weave it's way in.   I will still be letting you know about what I am eating and posting pictures and recipes at the end of every post so that you can learn with me and eat healthy whole foods!

Until next time, farewell and good night!

Warm regards,

Candace

Breakfast was yummy Oats with 1/2 banana, a teaspoon of natural peanut butter and a dash of cinnamon !

Lunch I had Organic Spring Lettuce with Cucumber, Goat Cheese and Balsamic Vinaigrette :D I love me some Goat Cheese!  If you have not tried it, it is wonderful and you must!

Dinner I had a Messy Egg Sandwich with 2 pieces of Ezekial Toast 2 eggs, Turkey Bacon (which I will not be using really any more because even though this is low in calories is is full of preservatives) and a sprinkle of sharp cheddar!  Yum this was my favorite meal by far, it's just something about breakfast for dinner always hits the spot :D

And lastley, I met with a new friend for a late coffee date and had this Cinnamon Rooibos tea and a little organic fruit roll! 

Think about it

What if you could do what you were meant to. What if you didn't let other People affect you. What if your decisions were the only thing holding you back from everything you could be. Here's how it is, you only have one shot, one chance, one time to live this life... Do you really want to waste it?

What if your actions really do hurt other people. What if you are the only person that could save somebody's life and you were to selfish to notice. What if you really are suppose to change the world but you never changed your mind, you never even gave yourself a chance. Instead you stick with the mundane, the average version of yourself and you wonder why life doesn't feel all that satisfying. Or why you are looking for something new because it's suddenly become so routine, so comfortable. Maybe you like not really taking a stand for one specific thing but instead teater on either side of the fence. Maybe you are so double minded you don't even know whats right anymore.

But what if there was an answer, what if someone held the keys to freedom. What if those addictions that owned you couldn't even touch you anymore. What If we got real with ourselves and started actually acting like we serve the Most High King instead of the prince of darkness.
This is a stand to take a stand. This is a chance to make a change. This is the fork in the road where you choose who you really are, where you really go.

You may think you have time, or that how you come off doesn't really matter, but I'm gonna tell you one thing that holds true... Those are all lies. Every single thing we do echoes in eternity and it doesn't matter if you thought you had more time or if you thought it didn't matter what you said or what you did, in fact the only thing that will matter is that you only thought, you never changed, you never even tried to make it, you never realized that for one second you might just be wrong.

I hope this resonates in all of our hearts that this life is not truely ours, it was purchased with a heavy price that can never be repaid... The least we can do is try.

Until we meet again I bid you all a farewell and good night.

Warm regards,
Candace

Skillet steak

2-4 steak fillets
1 purple onion, sliced
1 yellow pepper, sliced
4-5 mushrooms, sliced
Cast iron skillet

Heat skillet in oven on broil till hot. In the mean time have the burner on the stovetop ready. Season steaks with salt, pepper and olive oil. Once skillet is hot pull out of oven and place on burner,throw steaks on skillet and cook on both sides for 30 seconds each. Add the onions, peppers and mushrooms and put skillet back in broiler, cook 2 minutes on each side, then pull out of oven and put on Plate with tinfoil tented over it and let rest for 5 minutes. If you like steak more well done cook longer on each side in broiler, enjoy :)

Abyss

Do you ever wonder why some people seem to be always moving forward, always progressing and then others you could leave for ten years and come back and they would still be in the same exact spot.  Same job, or lack there of, same mind set, same goals still not accomplished...saying the same old thing and walking the same old walk they were when you left them.

I have a word for these people...disappointed.  These are the people that had a dream, that had a chance, maybe even moved towards it and almost made it happen.  But instead of falling down and picking themselves back up, they simply stayed down, so desperate, so hopeless, so Disappointed that they could not possibly fathom starting over and instead never started again.

I have been one of these people before, and I can tell you there is nothing greater than waking yourself up out of that slumber and deciding that you aren't going to stay down, but instead you are going to FIGHT!  I am sure that you know someone who is like this, or maybe that someone is you, all I know is there is nothing worse than waking up day after day knowing that this is not the life you wanted, knowing that as each moment ticks away on that clock and as each month turns into a year that your slowly loosing all your dreams.  If there is one thing that I have learned not only from myself but from others around me that have or are choosing this path, there is nothing rewarding in the mundane, there is nothing satisfying in broken-heartedness...nothing.  If I could go back a million times and change the word I said, the action I made, the thought I had, and chosen the other way I would have.  I guess that's the funny thing about life, you can never go back in time, you can never take something back, you can never get those wasted years and say "Okay, DO-OVER".  That will never happen, you live, you learn, you make mistakes, you hurt people, people hurt you, you forgive and you move on and try not to make the same poor decision the second time.

I lead a small life, meaningful but small, and I find myself wondering how much of it really matters.  Am I making any sort of impact whatsoever, is there any kind of good coming from this life that I live, am I doing everything I can to help everyone around me.  So much of my life reminds me of something I read in a book one time or saw in a movie, when shouldn't be the other way around?   I guess I'm not really looking for an answer just sending this off into the abyss to ponder...

Farewell, until we meet again.

Candace

Spanish Rice

2 Cups Cooked brown rice
1/2-1 Cup Salsa
1 Cup Corn
1 Can Pinto beans

Mix together over stove and serve with Chicken or if you are Vegan this is filling in itself!  Enjoy :D

The Top

Time and time again I feel like I let myself down.  I come to a point in my life where you would think that I could just enjoy myself, that I could look myself in the mirror and know that everything I set out to do was everything that I accomplished..but it's not.  Life so rarely turns out the way we plan them, and the things that do never really feel as we imagined they would.

What happens to us when we reach a point of no return, that place that we always wanted to be, that mountain we have been climbing for so long and finally reach the top.  This is suppose to be a milestone, a huge accomplishment, a moment of triumph and victory for a battle well waged....so why does that feeling fade, why even when you should be on top of the world you still feel under it.  It's the same thing that happens to those that think if we keep getting new things and always have the best of the best and are constantly adorning our homes and our egos with the latest trends that we will somehow be happy...but you won't.

I can tell you why that feeling once you reach the top doesn't last, it wasn't meant to last, we weren't meant to depend on our own ability to fill that void, to reach that dream.  No, that was not our job in the first place...but instead the job of our Maker.  Did you really think that the one who created you would allow you the ability to forget that you still needed Him.

I look at the world and see all the people that still tell themselves that they are the ones who have the control, but that's all they are..telling themselves.  After all the planning and all the doing and it's just you, that moment when you are all alone and all is calm and quiet...do you feel content?  For a lot of you the answer is most likely no, no because there is still so many things left that you want to achieve and while you may be content for now, you won't always be and then what? Do you find something new to fill that hole, do you create a new goal for yourself?

There is nothing wrong with new things and goals, but maybe instead of jumping on the next band-wagon right away, we can take a step back and determine why we are so quick to do this in the first place.  My wish for you is that you do all things you set out to do and accomplish all the dreams you desire, but that you also remember the reason we are meant to do these things in the first place, for a higher meaning, for a greater purpose.  I bid you all a farewell till next time.

Warm regards,

Candace

Orange Julius

1 cup of Orange Juice
1 cup of Ice cubes
1 cup of Milk Substitue (or regular milk)
1/2 cup of granulated or Raw Sugar
1 tsp. of Vanilla extract

Mix in a blender till smooth and serve, Enjoy :D

Ashes

Do you ever wonder how many times God has taken all your crap, all your wrong turns, your bad decisions, your "if I had just prayed about it a little more" choices, all the times you should have taken a right and instead you took a left, every moment that you took a few steps back instead of moving forward, all those horribly, sometimes life changing mistakes that we make and He, God has to fix it, He has to somehow out of the total mess we've gotten ourselves in, make it new, make it work, make it how it was suppose to be......He trades us beauty for ashes.

No worries because fortunately God is quite good at doing that, making all the times we decided to take the wrong path turn into the original path, the right path, the path we were suppose to be on all along. This is the path that our destinies run on, that every good thing and every hard time that made us stronger runs its course, it is the perfect way to go and the ultimate outcome that God chose for each of us when he sent us to this world so that we may change the world.

I often wonder how many times I have wandered down the wrong way or taken a wrong turn and I pray that I made the right choice more often than not. You see when you don't spend time with your Maker asking him if you should go here or take that new job there or move to another state or country or down the block for that matter, if you don't ask him if it is smart for you to being talking to that person about that specific thing or if you should have helped that person who really needed someone or whatever the circumstance may be, if you don't take the time to pray, to seek his face, to ask him "Am I making the right choice"...then you could make the wrong one that could set you back days, months and even years in the path he originally set out for you.

I said all of that to say this, PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE do not be so far from God that you don't take the time to ask him if what you are about to do is what you should do, please don't just assume and then months later you find out you missed a whole opportunity because you just didn't give God the courtesy of making sure he was okay with your ultimate decision. I don't want to waste valuable time, time that I could have spent achieving my destiny and making Him proud for time that instead I spent disappointing Him and completely missing the whole purpose for that moment.

Listen, I do not know how many times the Lord has had to pull me out of situations that I foolishly allowed myself to get into, and I am not sure that I want to know because I am afraid that I would not like the final number, but what I can do is move forward making sure that I am doing everything I can to seek the answer from the one who knows the outcome. I really pray that all of you will seek first before you make a move that could lead you down a wrong path and inevitably delay your whole reason for being here in the first place. I bid you all a farewell till next time.

Warm Regards,

Candace

Vegan Fluffy Pancakes w/ Raspberry Syrup

1 cup of flour ( I use barley)

1 cup of milk sub. (I use rice milk of if your not vegan you can use regular milk)

1 TBSP of sugar

2 TBSP of baking powder

2 TBSP of oil ( I use coconut oil)

Whisk all ingredients together, than bake on a griddle or pan until the tops start to bubble then flip until golden brown, for the syrup I take maple syrup and raspberry jam and heat till runny, then pour over your pancakes and enjoy :D