Mother Earth News Fair

This past weekend I attended the Mother Earth News Fair. For those who don’t know Mother Earth News is a magazine that is intended for those who want to live more organically and be more in tune with nature. The Fair was held at the Seven Springs Resort which is located in Southwest Pennsylvania. The resort is gigantic and beautiful, it is set in the mountains and the colors of fall surrounded us.

I went to the festival with my 2 best friends and my cousin. We all just split up and concentrated on the seminars we wanted.  We came a little later then we expected for I missed the first seminar I went to and the beekeeping seminar was way too crowded for me to be able to focus on the speaker. So I spent the first part of the morning walking around to the vendors.  We met a woman who made goat’s milk soap and I bought a delicious bar of Blackberry French Vanilla Soap from her. There were tons of soap vendors at the fair and it was hard to not want to buy all the scrumptious smelling goodies. What I liked about Dream Thyme Farm is that she talked with us about the fair and she had a conversation with my cousin about her lyme disease. She promised to send out good vibes to her for the day. Everyone we met there was so nice and lovely.  

The first full seminar I attended was Baking Bread in Five Minutes a Day. They taught us how to store bread in the refrigerator and be able to cook it whenever you needed. The hosts were funny and made me want to bake bread as much as possibly. Clarissa bought the book so we are having a bread date soon. The next seminar was ‘Eating Organic on a Dime’ and it focused on how to make your food last longer and what to invest in when buying organic. I learned a lot from the speaker and took about 4 pages of notes. My friends thought I was a nerd for taking notes but I found the entire weekend so informative.  Then I went to Cleanse and Detox then proceeded to spend the rest of the day browsing the exhibits around the convention center. While we were perusing the exhibits, we found a sauna booth. The guys at the sauna talked Clarissa and I into jumping inside. We stayed at their booth for probably 15 – 20 minutes, basking in the glorious warmth.  Then we spent a lot of time at the booth for the Vita-mix, which is this amazing blender. I swear if I was rich I would have both of those things in my home.

The next day I started the day off with a ride on the sky lift over Seven Springs. I was a little nervous at first but the view was amazing. You could see over everything and it felt so relaxing. The guy on the lift let us go around a couple times before we decide to jump off and find the rest of our party. Then I attended two of the best seminars of the weekend.

If any of you have ever watched Food, Inc., you would know Joel Saltin. He is the organic farmer who spoke against the big food industry. His speech was so inspiring and he got the audience excited about his message. He said something about a lot of people looking at organic eaters as elitist, hell I used to think organic buys were snobs, but the real elitists is the country trying to hold us down from having food choices.  It really changed my views on eating organic. I definitely recommend that everyone watch the movie he is in, look him up online or read one of his books. I don’t think you will be disappointed. After his speech, Clarissa and I went to his booth and professed our love or well at least our admiration for what he does. He was even kind enough to pose for a picture with us!

Then we listen to Ed Begley, Jr speak on How to Live Simply so Others can Simply Live. He really made becoming a greener person not feel so overwhelming. He said do what you can within your means. Basically just do something to help our environment and slowly things will happen where you can do more. Later in the day while walking around, we ran into him at the exhibits and we had to get our picture with him. Although, he seemed a little Hollywood when we asked (maybe because we didn't buy his product) but seriously I had to get a picture with anyone who was on Roseanne and in Christopher Guest movies!

The trip showed me on how little changes we make in our lives have a impact on our over all life. The weekend was amazing. There is so much I could write on everything I learned at the Mother Earth News Fair but I know this post is already lengthy. If any of you have the opportunity to go to one of their fairs, you should definitely take it. I know that I will be back next year!

Links you should check out from the fair:
Bon Ami (Awesome Dish Soap
Dream Thyme Farm
Crazy Sauna
Yummy Pumpkin Soap
Local Hot Pepper Products and More!
Penn Forest Cemetery (write more about this later)
Mother Earth News
Inside Storey

Sometimes it Lasts in Love and Sometimes it Hurts Instead

I started blogging for two main reasons to get over a bad break-up and to discover the self I had inside that I let go. The past few months I have been covering up the hurt I feel with adventures and new challenges. People tend to forget how much heartache hurts unless they are feeling it. I had a lot of friends say to me, “I feel like you two broke up a long time ago.” When in my head I could probably count day the day, hour and minutes if I had to. It has only been a few months since DB and I went our separate ways. A lot of people would be on to the next significant other right now, hell DB probably has a new girlfriend but that is just his style. My heart moves in slow motion when it comes to love. It took me two weeks to say “I Love You” back to DB after the first time he said it.

The pain of losing someone you truly love intensifies when you are let down in other ways. I recently received some disappointing news that left me feeling rejected. During the hurt of this ordeal I could only think about how I longed to call DB. I wanted to ask him how he could stop loving someone so quickly, how he could let me be in so much pain and let him know  I feel like I have to completely start over.

At this point in my life I feel like I never want to love again. The pain and agony that is there after someone leaves you, makes the beauty of love feel like an ugly scar.  I have always had a cage around my heart, letting people see the possibility of letting them in but always keeping it locked. DB somehow managed a way to get that key and I trusted with him with everything that I had.

The last couple weeks have seemed hard, maybe because my stress level is up or maybe because I no longer have that male companion to talk to at night. I feel like my sadness is a burden on my friends. I also know that they really can tell when the smile is fake and I am breaking down inside. I was worried about writing so honestly about how I was feeling. I am scared people would look at me as weak or crazy. It is hard to realize others have probably felt the way you do, at some point in their life. I am not sad everyday but when it comes I just feel like I am stuck in this black hole. I wish so hard to be happy like everyone I see. I do know that my happiness is not with DB, he didn’t take it when he left. It is just in the shadows and I need to find a way to let that sunshine clear away those shadows.

I am ending the blog a different way this time. I am going to leave everyone with a song. When the Adele album first came out I listened to this song on repeat and sang it so loudly in the car. It reminded me of an old friend whom I wished all the best in the world for even though there were some feelings there with both of us. Now when I hear the song, it is a whole new wave of emotion. I can feel the pain in Adele’s voice and it matches the pain my heart. The other day while driving the song brought me to tears and let myself cry as I drove home. I hope this song awakens emotions in some of you as it does for me.

At a Loss

Part of my blog is not only doing things I have never done before but also meeting my long term goals. One of my long term goals is to lose weight and become a healthier person all around.

About a month before DB and I broke up, he and I joined Weight Watchers online. They have an awesome app for your phone or Ipod and it makes tracking your food easy to do.  I tried Weight Watchers once before while in college but it was hard with buffet lines and junk food being everywhere I looked. So this time we were going to get serious. Now mind you, DB always told me, he and I were going to get healthier but when he came down he was always too tired to walk or go to the gym. Then we would eat out all the time and it is hard to say no something bad when the person across from you has it.  Now I am not blaming DB but he definitely did not help.

The week after our break-up I barely ate. I couldn’t keep anything down; everything just looked and tasted awful. Finally I started to get an appetite back and decided to really get serious about losing weight. I was already having success with the program but knew I could step it up a little. So I ate more organically, counting points and made a point to get my veggies in. I cut out so much red meat also.

After a month or so I lost about 15 pounds then I got stuck on a plateau. I was already going to Zumba twice a week then I realized I barely tracked my points on weekends. So I got more determined on my goal, ate better, added biking and hiking to my workout regiment and finally a few more pounds fell off.

The other day I went to my doctor and since my last appointment I had lost 20 pounds! I was ecstatic. I know this is a small loss on the big scale of weight I would like to lose but I am proving to myself I can do it. Usually I lose some weight then gain it all back but I feel like something is different this time. I really hope the weight continues to leave my body and I hope that I become happier with myself.

I guess secretly or not so secretly I hope I can rub it in his face too. I know how immature I sound but hey, we all need one of those “this is what you lost moments.”  I know it will be a year or two before I reach that goal though and by then I won’t even care what he thinks about me. Hopefully by that point I only care about what I think of myself.