Happy Anniversaries :)

Tomorrow – November the 19th – this blog will be 2 years old :) I started writing on Nov 19th 2006, the night before I started my 92-day Juice Feast in Costa Rica. You can check out my first ever blog post HERE if you like ;) (To the right is a picture of me having my 'final supper' before feasting...wow, my hair is abt half the length there that it is now... ;) Happy Anniversary, dear blog :)
I was very unsure about blogging at first, yet soon fell in love with this medium of communicating – it feels like ‘writing an email to the world’ to me and in the last 2 years I’ve gone on to write around 400 posts...
Massive thanks and gratitude to all of you who have been along for the ride – for all the encouragement, comments, feedback, suggestions, support and LOVE :) It is all appreciated...

on November the 17th I had:

1 quart water
2 cups greeeeen juice: spinach, kale, endive, fennel, cucumber, celery, ginger, lime
2 cups water
1 persimmon
15 spirulina ‘nuts’
2 cups energy soup with flax crackers and okra on the side, followed by goji YUMBALLS ;)
little cup of spicy tea
3 cups water
double shot of wheatgrass juice
bowl of grawnola from Shellbel with pumpkin seed milk – yummmmmmmm
2 cups water

Well, 2 years since my Juice Feast started, eh? Would I do it again? SURE...I’m always up for some more detox...lol...(well, I did used to be morbidly obese, remember... ;)
There actually seem to be rather a lot of people Juice Feasting at the moment from what I’m noticing – I keep getting emails about Feasting as well as meeting people in person with those tell-tale shiny eyes and skin ;) One current Juice Feaster is Steve Pavlina – he’s on day 25 as I write this – yay, Steve :)
He seems to be having a very ‘interesting’ time of it, as you can read if you head over to his wonderfully honest, insightful blog HERE.
It seems reading about Steve’s current juicy lifestyle has been pressing the buttons of some of his regular readers, who have been writing to him concerned about his health and encouraging him to stop feasting, labelling Juice Feasting as ‘fanatical’ – lol...beautiful ;) I LOVE the response Steve wrote up about this on his blog, which you can read HERE. The labelling of healthy things as ‘fanatical’ has long fascinated me – for example, someone who eats raw might be called a ‘health nut’, ‘health freak’ or ‘health food fanatic’ and yet I have never encountered someone who eats mostly from fast food restaurants being called a ‘fast food fanatic’ or a ‘trans-fat nut’... ;)
Here’s a little excerpt from Steve’s response that I love:

“I don’t take on challenges like a juice feast with the naive expectation that it’s going to be smooth sailing the whole way. What would be the reward in that? That would be like going to the gym and doing my workout on a machine set at level 1. I’d just be wasting my time.
The goals that interest me most are the ones that cause me to say to myself, “Wow… I’m really not sure if I’m cut out for this. This looks pretty damned tough. I’m going to have to push myself to a whole new level in order to make it to the end. I honestly don’t know if I’ll be able to pull this off.”
But then I think to myself, “What if I fail? No big deal. At least I’ll know where my limits are. But what if I succeed? How awesome would that be? I’d gain an incredible new reference experience for the rest of my life. I’d have an amazing experience to share with others. And what new challenges might I tackle beyond this one?” That’s the kind of thinking that excites me.”

I hope you treat yourself to reading the whole thing over HERE – there are some GREAT thoughts in there about challenges, goals, ‘fanatacism’, boundaries and more...ENJOY :)


on November the 18th I had:

1 quart water
little cup of spicy tea
triple shot of wheatgrass (eeeeeeeek ;)
2 cups of energy soup with okra and flax crackers on the side, followed by goji yumballs,
little cup of spicy tea
3 cups water
1.5 cups greeeen juice: spinach, kale, endive, fennel, cucumber, celery, Jerusalem artichoke, ginger, lime
2 cups of energy soup with flax crackers on the side, followed by goji yumballs,
little cup of spicy tea
2 cups water

Do you know what? Today is a very special day to me for another reason too. I hope he won’t mind me sharing this with you...I am feeling rosy right now, as it is precisely three years today since I sent the first email to Mr. M that sparked the flame that burst into the roaring fire of our relationship ;) lol... For those of you who don’t know the story of how we first connected, back on November the 18th, 2005, a certain Stokes sent an email to an American raw foodist called Matthew Monarch. The Stokes had her first e-book out and was curious if the Monarch would like to sell it in his big shiny American raw food online store ;) He did not want to. Hmmmm... HOWEVER, he did like the look of the aforementioned Stokes and after a number of emails back and forth, those flames were starting to spark up...when huge bouquets of roses began arriving at her door, along with dozens of balloons, it was clear to Stokes that she was getting more than she’d bargained for from sending out her little email ;) After 4 months the two met in person...and well, now here we are, 3 years later, unfortunately thousands of miles apart again and yet, together... The journey has not always been smooth, we are in this together though and feel very fortunate to have each other...I’m excited to see what the next 3 years bring :) Happy Anniversary, Mr. M ;)
What about you? Have you found a yummy soul-mate to play with? Looking for someone? Someone particular in mind...? If so, how might it feel to send that certain person an email today, to let them know you’re interested? If not, how about taking a visit to a yummy raw social site like GiveItToMeRaw and seeing who’s around? Or if you’re already in a relationship, what might you be able to do today to help that person know you love them, appreciate them and care for them?
MUAH :) ENJOY :)

We love you all,
Miss Stokes (and the Monarch) xxx