Hi friends, how are you? I debated on posting this week or possibly giving myself a break– but here I am. I thought I should come in and say thank you. SO here we are 11 random things. A mix of thank you’s and random thoughts.

11 random things:

  • It feels weird, but I had just posted this post about feeling good. And then a day or two later crashed again. Could be a lot of things. Maybe all the dust and renovation fumes going on the house. Or hormones. Or who knows. Maybe I’m more worn from travel than I thought. But I crashed. And I typically only open up about stuff here on my blog. And leave instagram for the more superficial things. But I opened up there, asking for help, and so many of you guys responded. I still have so many DMs to get to. So thank you. Three years into this viral garbage and I’m still going to do my damn best everyday. Thanks for your help through the years.
  • I currently have more posts in drafts and in mind than I have time or energy for. I have so many topics I want to write about. And so many photos of adventures from home and away that I want so share. But since I don’t have the energy to blog five days a week like I used to, things fall behind.
  • I think I’m going to back to mexico for a while. A second girls trip for M and I. We both want to spend more time there and I want her to practice Spanish more. I don’t really want to leave Alex, but he just cant come with work now. But I’m thinking maybe we’ll wait for December/ January when its busiest at work for Alex and he’s rarely around then anyway. We’ll see. My health will decide. Also, it seems silly to leave Florida when the weather is it’s nicest  here. But however, whats the point of being in an ocean town when the ocean is closed due to pollution? So many thoughts.
  • I hate when I have so many random thought post ideas and I sit down and they all fly out the window. Happens EVERY single time.

  • Did I tell you we painted the house pink? We finally did it. Pulled the trigger. We were between pink and yellow for a long time. I told Alex to pick and I would be behind it. He went with pink. It looks great. He also spent a ton of time working on the backyard while we were away. It looks really great. And since its kind of sort of cooling down we’ve been spending more time there. A good break from the indoor construction. ps. whats with her mean mug?
  • Isn’t weird how home repairs work? You work on one things and fix it up to look real nice but then the thing next to it just looks awful and worn? Never ending really. But I’ve definitely learned to step back and not care. I had the most intense anxiety in high-school. I couldn’t even sit in a cluttered space without losing it. Now,  well, I can’t read a book in clutter, but I can totally hang in it with no problems.
  • I still haven’t gotten through my healing trauma book I wrote about in my second 11 random thoughts post. It’s been months. I did much less reading (aka none) while Marlowe and I went away. And it’s just a really hard read. It’s bringing up a lot of emotional garbage I went through as a kid. I know I just got to get through it. I have a whole giant pile of books waiting to be read on my bedside pile. I should share them all with you guys. They all look so good! And Marlowe too. We found the most amazing books in London.
  • Speaking of childhood things– you know what keeps going through my ind lately? And this is really random but acutane. You know that super toxic medicine a lot of kids took for acne? Alex and I both took it. And every time I think about it lately, I’m just so shocked by it. I don’t know if it’s still prescribed, but I can’t believe that was ever offered as a solution to kids. Like, yes, it worked, but not without serious internal damage. But so many of us took it! I look back and wish I could teach my younger kid self so much. Like, isn’t it painfully obvious that acne /rashes/ /etc are primarily internal problems? I mean, yes there are things that can cause external rashes, but chronic skin problems? Not typically. I don’t know man. Maybe this sounds like a crazy rant, but I can’t stop thinking about stuff like this lately.
  • Or here is a random one: Do you guys remember when the skittles got spilled all over the highway? And it colored the highway red. If you know the story, a giant truck carry damaged red skittles to a cow factory farm spilled and spilled all over the road. So my thought is– people were appalled to learn some of the awful things cows were being fed instead of their natural food. BUT LIKE WHAT ABOUT US. Like, duh cows shouldn’t be eating skittles, but we feed our damn kids skittles. Trust me, I’m far from perfect– in college I one pooped NEON GREEN from eating an XL bag of sour skittles. Yeah, I was so in the dark about health and taking care of myself. And now, I obviously stay away from that stuff, but  I don’t even want to know what the renovation guys sprayed in our house while Marlowe and I were away. And I don’t want to know the amount of radiation I receive from my phone, computers, hair dryer, etc. And I’m sure I surrounded myself and my family with a million toxic things all the time– not perfect. But damn, cows shouldn’t be eating skittles– that’s a fact, but neither should we. So if we’re not eating skittles– neither will the cows. Okay, end rant, sorry.
  • Alex sent me this left photo (unedited though, haha) while marlowe and I were away. We had to pull up the flooring due to water damage and this is the floor we found in the living room. We expected some weird concrete– but no, theres full on tile under there. It’s so funky. He said it reminded him of stained teeth, but I said I sort of like it. But seeing it in person? I totally like it. Every time I would walk into the room it was so bright. I loved it. So we’re keeping it. We re-grouted it this week and it looks pretty nice! I think it’ll work with our furniture and stuff. We ordered a large jute rug for the center. But now I’m sort of leaning to just a smaller rug and keeping more of the floor exposed for brightness. We’ll see. I’ve spent a good amount of time looking for a good rug, just in case. (still my fav place to look for rugs— besides during travel)
  • We still have a massive hole in our bathroom wall and no toilet or sink or anything. So we have to work on that. But that’s last on the list. I definitely have taken photos along the way to share the process with you guys. But again, with my posting record lately who knows when I’ll get to it. It’s weird still working hard on trying to get everything done, but never feeling like I’m doing all I want to do. But that’s just life, isn’t it? But things have been really good at home. Everything is upside down. But it’s fine. It’s not stressing me out. When its done, it’s done.
  • Instagram: it truly has bummed me out a lot since the algorithm, but I decided on this last trip that I would finally say F it. That I was going to stop worrying about whir a photo did well or not. I want to post what I want to post, even if it means another drop in likes or instagram not sharing my photos, fine. I want to post what I want to post without worrying about a stupid machine. And so I’m doing that. And it feels good. ps. I still haven’t shared my final thoughts on blogging for a living. But one day I should and will probably get to that.

Welp, that was technically 12 random things. And a lot of them were not the things spinning in my head this weekend that I planned to type — but I guess that works. A true, 11 random things spinning in my head right now. I hope you guys are well in the world. I want to say thank you again for supporting me and being part of this space. I truly appreciate you guys.

More recipes, travels, emotional crap, relationship stuff, personal stuff, eco stuff, all the stuff coming to a slow living working on self-healing blog soon. <3

ps. this is the link the swing chair— one of the few pieces I can actually link, haha. I got mine super discounted though– as there was a sale and mine was “broken” except it’s really not. It worked out great. It’s been hanging around (pun intended) for 7 years or so and in great condition.

 

6 Comments

  1. Wow cool! How old is your house? You might wanna check those tiles for lead. A lot of them are leaded and if you are doing construction it would be good to know what you are being exposed to!

  2. Hi, Sonja and Drea!
    This is the first time I’ve posted. I’ve always been nervous or afraid to seem judgmental. I agree with Sonja. I was vegan for 14+ years. I always «knew » what my body needed and I wouldn’t listen to anyone else. I am 5 feet 5 inches. When I gave birth to my daughter I weighed 125 lbs. she was almost 11 lbs. I was clearly diabetic. I am also of Hispanic decent and we have a predisposition to it. We all feel great on a high carb diet because we are on a sugar high. After many years of “hormonal imbalances”and “food intolerances i” realized I had done it to myself. I’m not telling you to include animal protein or anything but I will say that if it’s not working please stop. You are a lovely person and don’t deserve to feel Iike you won’t live till old age. Please do what’s right for your health and your family not to please a cause. Sorry if it seems preachy. It’s not the way I mean it. You can totally be vegan and not high carb but all the research shows high carb to be flirting with diabetes. I hope I haven’t offended you. All the best.

    • Hey hey! not offended, but please please look into the cause of diabetes again. Diabetes is caused by high blood sugar. High blood sugar cannot be caused by high carbs alone. High blood sugar is the effect of eating a high carb diet with a high fat diet. If you cut out the fat OR the carbs, you won’t have a blood sugar spike. You have to choose one or the other. I avoided all sugar even fruit (with the exception of a few strawberries here and there) for TWO years because I was scared of giving my body carbs and sugar. I thought the high carb thing was crazy but after countless articles, research, books, and more, I decided to give it a go. I would not suggest that just anyone starts eating a ton of pineapple or bananas. It has to be done well and thoughtfully– otherwise you will create some blood sugar issues. Like, when I travel, I don’t eat as much fruit typically (depends where we go of course) and when this happen, I come back and I don’t just dive into fruit because this would be a blood sugar suicide. I have to ease my body into it. One doctor I might suggest is Dr. Mauricio Gonzales– especially because he works primarily with the hispanic community with diabetes. The research is there, it just has to be done well.

      Also, I’m totally not tied to my diet. I’ve changed my diet multiple times since getting sick to try to find what works best after this crap destroyed my biome and colon. I even started eating eggs again (even though they make me gag just thinking about them). If I find the research to show a better diet. Or I find that I feel worse instead of better with this. Or better with something else, believe me, I’m changing my diet. My end game isn’t a specific diet, it’s optimal health! I used to be crazy stubborn, but I’m definitely not anymore. I just want to feel good and live easy, haha 🙂

  3. Drea,
    a lot of times when I read your blog I keep reading how much you “push through”, and how your body is “failing” you – and it just gives me the impression that you are keeping a distance from your own body. I am a Shiatsu practitioner (well, or almost at least, soon finishing my studies) which is built on the philosophy of TCM, and when I look at how you live and eat from this perspective, it’s almost exactly the opposite of what chinese medicine would recommend for you.

    so, anyways, maybe it’s ok that you go a different way, but in any case I would recommend that you do something (if not Shiatsu or seeing a TCM doctor) to close this gap between your mind and body – that you feel that you ARE your body, not that it’s some attachment to your mind that you carry around.

    just my thoughts, so feel free to ignore them if it doesn’t make sense for you 🙂

    • Hi Sonja!

      Youre right as far as what I eat– I totally do the complete opposite of TCM. But thats only because if you read through my diet changes through the last three years then you’ll know I took the advise of my TCM practitioner and tried what she recommended (even started eating eggs again) and it did nothing for me 🙁 It kept me in bed and bedridden– and then when I switched to a high carb low fat diet and within three days I had SO much more energy and was out of bed. And it works well when I follow it, but hormones, stress, gluten, and other random triggers make my body crash again.

      But yeah, very well aware that body and mind are one. My mind lives in my body, but it’s still me. But I guess I just refer to body as a separate entity because even when my body physically hurts, I typically emotionally feel pretty good and hopeful. I mean, I definitely have days where my body crashes and I emotionally cant handle the fear. But thats not my norm. I just want the physical parts of my body to feel as well as the rest of me does. <3

      • hey Drea,

        thanks for you answer! It totally makes sense that you are trying something different if this didn’t work for you. I guess you read really a lot about diets, so you probably thought already about the following aspects, but now I’m just curious 🙂

        I read that sometimes when you change your diet and you immediately feel better it is just because your body is stressed and produces stress hormones like cortison and adrenalin which gives you more energy, but after a while it wears off and you feel worse. I sometimes thought of that too when you talked about trying something new and a little while later you felt bad… is this something you know about and is not a possibility in your case?

        did your TCM practitioner also talk to you about your elements and how this might influence your situation?

        so – hope this arent to many (annoying) questions. also, sorry for any strange grammar/words ect because of living in a tiny european country with a weird language.