Mindfulness

I mentioned a while back that I had read Crones Don't Whine and Gluten Free Girl recently. I was completely enthralled with both of them, and yet it's taken me this long to figure out why.

Come to figure it out, it was about mindfulness. Both authors were talking about mindfulness -- Shauna in relation to food and Jean more generally.

Mindfulness is something that I used to be very careful of, but somehow, what with work and a baby and all...well, it's not something that I have made a lot of time for in the last few years. Perhaps that's why gardening and and crafting have been so important to me ... time for stillness.

Now that I am basically grain free, though, my sense of smell and my hearing are returning. So is my mental clarity. I am starting to be able to "notice" better... and I have become aware of how much "not noticing" leads to feeling harried.

Time to spend more attention mindfully, I think. ;)

Oh, my current reads are Going Against the Grain by Melissa Diane Smith. Not nearly as captivating as my previous reads, but very interesting. If I weren't experiencing these things for myself, I doubt I'd have believed it. I went off wheat, and my aches and pains started to fade and my mental clarity started to return. Because of my diabetes, we mostly started replacing wheat flour with nut flours rather than other grains. We have also been trying to make one or two meals per day SCD compliant as we move toward trying that out for a while. But every now and again, I would feel as tough I'd had eaten wheat or oats again...when I knew I hadn't. But I had always eaten some grain or other! Thus my decision to go "grass free" for a while.

Oddly enough, even after being up all night with a sick boy, I am now able to function all day. I was barely able to function after a full night's sleep before. Not to say I feel great on no sleep...but hey, functioning is good. :p

The other book I am reading is "I'm Just Here for the Food" by Alton Brown. Fun read and very informative. If anything it's *more* informative than the show. One day I am going to play the shows very slowly and write down the names of all the books on Alton's book shelf. (I recognize many of them, because I've got them...and they're good ones. Makes me wonder who I may have missed.)