Happiest. Chick. Ever.

"Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony." —Mahatma Gandhi

Okay. So. Was the tone of my last blog (http://beeatree.blogspot.ca/2013/07/why-i-go-to-therapy-and-you-should-too.html?spref=fb) upbeat and hopeful? That was my intention...

Buuut in the spirit of mental health being a somewhat squeamish subject for some of you, I've decided to write a follow-up piece about how I am currently living the way I intend to MOST OF THE TIME IN MOST AREAS OF MY LIFE!

Have you any idea how miraculous this is?! It means that all that needs to shift in order to be living EXACTLY as I intend to is the scale.

Here's how it shakes down:

*I am writing my Truth and telling it to the world. Approximately SIX HUNDRED of you are reading my truth and to you I am deeply, staggeringly and humbly  grateful. Thank you. A lot.

*I teach yoga one night a week. About a dozen of you are devoted students. About fifty of you are semi-regular. Some of you have come once and not liked it very much. Some of you have thought about coming half a dozen times but Survivor was on. Some of you didn't know I was a yoga teacher prior to reading this post. You will find teachers who are stronger, bendier, balancier than me. But I deeply love the transformative power of this practice and I am thrilled to be able to share it with you.

I'm sending the biggest blessing I have to every single one of you that I practice with. Or will practice with to any degree. Or not. I bow to you. I bow to my colleagues all over the world who are spreading the good word. I bow as deeply as a person can bow to my teachers.

PS you are ALL my teachers.

*I have the most inspiring, kindest, most forgiving, non-judgemental, supportive, talented, funniest, amazingest fiance ever. Really. Best of everything. I recently thanked his mom for him. Everyone who has met him will testify. He really is the best human*

*with the exception of my daughter. If there is a cooler human than her, I've yet to encounter him/her. My fiance agrees.

*We grow some of our own food. Lettuce, kale, spinach (which didn't really turn out, but we eat it anyway). Soon-to-be wax beans. Some herbs that I planted and can't identify because I chucked them in pots and rows without rhyme or labels. We eat organic meat and some tofu and when we're not eating quinoa every night, we're eating bacon because it makes us happy.

In the spirit of full disclosure, we still eat sugar. But we both drink a green thing every day.

*I practice yoga (fairly) regularly, eat (mostly) really clean, meditate with deep devotional gratitude. And I feel DAMN good.  I've been thinner (which usually means that I'm stressed right out and not eating). I'm not without jiggle. But I'm in my body and it's a conversation instead of a civil war between my ass and my self esteem. I don't define my love for myself (or lack thereof) by the number on the scale. In fact, I threw my scale in the garbage. I haven't weighed myself in years. This is a big deal for me. I used to weigh myself at least three times a day and judge myself HARD. I love myself more than that now.

This is a hard-earned happiness. I've earned it and I'm appreciating every single second. I only have to get slightly pissy before I realize that I have everything I could ever want.

So. Why is this chick telling us how crazy she is one day and then how happy she is the next? Because, Dear Reader. I want you to be happy too. I want you to hear it from someone who's been to the dark and back. This happiness is available to you once you survive whatever it is you're going through.

Rooting for you,

-Er

Growing...

A garden is a grand teacher. It teaches patience and careful watchfulness; it teaches industry and thrift; above all it teaches entire trust.

Gertrude Jekyll

We are in transition at our house. Not only is our family growing and learning our new places and roles, not only is our baby girl growing bigger by the second, but my fiance and I have both been seized by an insane desire to live with and on the land a little more each day.

It's really quite yogic in concept and will be old news to those of you who've been cooking perfect quinoa for years.

This just in: we feel better when we eat healthier!

We've been going gluten freeish. There's nothing militant about it. We ate brown rice noodles and organic free-range meatballs the other night. We're neither vegans nor entirely gluten free.

...we even...eat sugar...

Cue the theme from Psycho!!!

My dear friend, P calls herself, "Wheat Free, Meat Free, but not Sweet Free". We try to abide rather loosely by her model.

And, damn! It feels really good.

You know what else feels good?! Connecting with our food. On an emotional and psychological level, we're getting to know the food we eat a little more intimately. We grow a bit. We make a little more by from scratch.

Mom (last Sunday via text):  u might be becoming a hippie.

Me: Becoming? I'm a yoga teacher...

Mom: Yes, but now u make ur own granola too.

It's true. We eat salad grown in our backyard and have had no less than five conversations this week about wheat grass. A juicer is the only item on our wedding gift wish list.

Mom (Monday via text): What do u you want for ur birthday?

Me: How do you get your question mark to go upside down?

Me: I want a lemon tree. Or a juicer. Or a stand-up mixer.

Mom (after several minutes): A lemon tree??

Mom: Seriously:

Me: Yes. A Meyer lemon tree. They're sweeter.

Mom: where does one buy a lemon tree?

Me: On the internet.

Mom: hippie.

My love and I were swinging on our porch swing recently, discussing all the things we want for and from our home and yard. Lattice to shelter us from the illegal trailer park which has cropped up in the half lot next door. Enough wood to last at least three winters (so it can dry properly and heat efficiently). Oh. And a wood stove to burn said wood.

And then, we stopped for a moment to appreciate the fact that our yard will never be 100% complete but it's been the perfect place to grow our family in.

The yard isn't finished. We have a lot of lettuce and a bit of spinach in the garden (aaand...not much else). But nothing was even there a year ago so it's producing beautifully by comparison.

Besides which, fun things happen back there...

Yes, we're happy little hippies who come home from yoga class and head inside for a mostly gluten-free meal when it gets too cold out to sit on the porch swing and dream.

And then we pound through a bag of Swedish Berries while watching Game of Thrones.

Are you in transition?

What are you doing to get a little closer to that pie-in-the-sky lifestyle?

Keep on Growin',

Er