On a stormy fall evening, my favorite soup to make is Three Sisters. It’s also a perfect recipe to try if you are new to Native American Cuisine. The soup celebrates the way many Indigenous Nations cultivated and grew their crops through planting corn, legumes, and squash together to enhance the soil and productivity of agriculture. The corn stalks act as a trellis for the legume plant to climb and the squash is planted in between stalks to shade the ground and prevent weeds. It might be a fun garden project for little ones to try next June What I love about this soup is that it’s so versati ..read more

Hello Blogging Family! As we head into my favorite season of autumn, I find it a perfect time to engage in activities that reflect upon this special day. This week I hope to share a few recipes and a few select books that I highly recommend with a Native American voice. In the meantime, here are a few ideas for celebrating Indigenous People’s Day with friends and family all year long: Support your local Native Made Market Place. We have a winter one coming up that is so much fun to attend. I also enjoy our farmers market with produce and goods from Native owned businesses & farms. If you ..read more

Hi blogging family! Yesterday, my friends and I had a blast celebrating St. Patrick’s Day. I made a shamrock shake to start the morning off on a festive note, then invited a few neighbors and a friend over for soda bread and a plant-based stew for dinner. It was hard to narrow down a movie to watch because they’re so many great Irish movies out there. We ended up watching Brooklyn with Saoirse Ronan and Banshees of Inisherin with Colin Farrell and Brendan Gleeson. As far as eating healthy all day, that didn’t happen We had a lot of sweets that evening that my neighbors brought over. I’ll get ..read more

Good afternoon blogging friends and family, I caved and baked cookies when I got home So much for my diet today. I’m still learning how to navigate diet and exercise with having sweets every once and a while. The only solution I could come up with is to bake and give away most of what I make to my two neighbors with little ones. By creating plant-base options for cookies, I found it eliminates a lot of the cholesterol that you may find in baked goods. I used Bob’s Red Mill Egg Replacer for this recipe and they still turned out chewy and delicious. You just have to be careful and not over bak ..read more

Hi blogging friends and family, It feels like forever since I’ve blogged. Work and other things got in the way last month. I’m happy to report that my Mediterranean challenge of eating plant based meals and living a more mindful life has paid off. First of all, my sleep is so much better at night. I think this is because I walk everywhere unless its snowing or there is ice. My house plants have survived the low-light of winter. I love gardening outdoors but it’s been fun to watch my plants grow in the home. Archie, my little emotional support kitty, is such a joy to come home to and wake up t ..read more

Good Evening Blogging Family, Wow, already Wednesday! I made a super quick and yummy dinner using leftover lemon rice and an Indian sauce that I’ve never tried before called Spicy Vindalo (by Maya Kaimal). I sauteed 2 roma tomatoes and 1/2 a yellow onion to add to the sauce (next time I’ll blend it after cooking). Then I just threw the ingredients for mint raita in my blender. Yum is all I can say! I love making a big pot of rice for the week because everything else comes together nicely when you don’t feel like cooking. I had a therapy session today. It’s something that I’ve been doing onc ..read more

Good Evening Blogging family and friends! Today, I woke up thinking this challenge was a mistake I know I’m doing it for myself, but I really wanted to bake cookies when I got home this evening. As I pushed all of my plants by the window to get some sunlight for the day, played with little Archie, and made a smoothie this morning, I told myself that I got this. I know that once I lose the weight, it will be easy to maintain and that gets me through it. I surpassed my steps today and enjoyed shopping with a neighbor early in the morning. She’s teaching her daughter how to cook and wanted to ..read more

Good evening fellow bloggers and friends, Today was the first day of my 90 day challenge. Was it a success? I think so. I went to bed little later than usual but got 5 hours of solid sleep. This is progress for someone that suffers from chronic insomnia. I think the melatonin helped. I’m excited to see if the challenge improves my sleep. Tonight, I plan on reading a book that I borrowed from my neighbor called House Plants for All by Danae Horst. The plants seem to do better if I push them directly under the windows when I am gone for the day. I know that might be a pain once I get more plan ..read more

Hello Blogging Family, Happy Sunday! I hope you all are enjoying the weekend. Today is a big day for me fitness wise. My birthday is coming up and I wanted to give myself the gift of wellness. My manuscript is really coming along and I finally found the perfect pitch for my novel (its essential when querying agents). That being said, it will be a waiting game no doubt with a lot of rejection. So I knew I had to be at my healthiest. Previously working with the World Health Organization had its advantages. I worked on projects preventing non-communicable diseases (mainly heart disease and diabe ..read more

Hi Blogging Family, I just wanted to give you a peek into my weekend so that you can get better acquainted with me. I always start my days off from work with picking out a small bouquet of flowers. Last weekend, I found one with a cute little butterfly that hovers over the rose. As a granddaughter of a florist, I appreciate little details like this. It instantly brightens my day. It snowed on Saturday morning, so I prepped a few photos for the blog. I have a 5 second rule with photos. I take everything from my phone, quickly crop and adjust lighting if need be, and that’s it. I spend maybe ..read more