I’ve settled myself into coziest chair in the house and it’s about one hour until the clock strikes midnight.

I wanted to connect here–with you and with myself in preparation for the new year. I’m going to find a quiet place in the house and within myself to focus on a few things as the clock strikes midnight.

I mentioned yesterday the importance of reviewing your successes for 2009. Hopefully you managed to find the time to do that. If not, do that now. It’s important to validate the good stuff before you move forward with the new. Celebrate your success.

In the same way that I had you scan the months of the year in our last exercise, I’d like to ask you now to scan the different areas of your life and aspects of who you are as a person and as a woman. The never ending to do lists and multitasking miracles we pull off still somehow don’t manage to leave us time to address our own personal details. When was the last time you had a pedicure? Never had one? What needs to happen in your life to reach closer to your ideal?

Have you ever set yourself some New Year’s Resolutions only to break them on Day 3, then give up on yourself?

Remember from yesterday’s message, this program is our slow and steady path to success. Put your discipline in place. Get serious and straight up with yourself.

How committed are you when other people ask you to help them, show up for something, or be there in some way? Make a commitment to yourself over the next 21 days. I don’t know where you’re at, how you’ve been or what you want to achieve for yourself, but you can do whatever you want, you can achieve all kinds of amazing things if you’re willing to take the time to paint the picture first.

This is YOUR day.

This is YOUR chance to start fresh and make something happen.

It’s a new moon, a new year, a new beginning.

For the next 21 days, treat every day as if it was the first day of the New Year. Be committed consistently throughout this program. This isn’t going to be a quick fix. Let’s get serious, roll up our sleeves and make this the best year ever! If you slip up on Day 3, keep going!

Tonight’s New Year’s Eve. Take some time to visualize and paint the picture of your year to come. Just images, colors, textures, spaces and sounds. Make this easy, natural and playful for yourself. If you find you are forcing yourself, step back. Think of something you love and just hold that space. Recall a moment you felt proud of what you had achieved and hold that space for a while.

Here are the 10 different areas of our lives we’re going to be addressing throughout the 21-Day Challenge:

1. Attitude
2. Fitness/Activity
3. Spirituality/Creative Expression
4. Sensuality
5. Health
6. Family
7. Relationships
8. Beauty
9. Home
10. Money/Abundance.

I don’t want you rushing ahead of yourself, so I won’t put too many details about each category, but at least you have them and can start putting your attention on the different areas.

January 1st is your day to dream, play, imagine, hope and COMMIT to the next 21 days.

Then starting on January 2, we’ll spend 2 days on each section. The first day, you’ll brainstorm your ideal scenario for each of these topics. Just let yourself go, pull out colored pens and dream, play, explore the possibilities of what you can create for yourself in each of these areas. Write your notes on a paper or in a notebook. You’re going to need to sleep with them under your pillow.

Why?

Because my mom always told me to do that with my study notes before my exams. It all works by osmosis. On the second day, after you’ve slept on your ideal scene, dreamed about it, and let the pictures paint themselves, then it’s time to circle the ones that stand out most and feel the best when you read them. Then you identify which ones are achievable in the short term and which ones should be considered more long term.

Then you need to create some action steps that you can take over the coming weeks.

We’re going to repeat that little pattern for each of the 21 days of the challenge. For now, my Sweetcake, it’s time to PARTY and countdown to the New Year. But before I let you go and sip champagne or hug your loved ones, I want to tell you how grateful I am for your support and kind words. If I counted my wealth by adding up success stories, letters of appreciation, celebration and good news, I would be one of the wealthiest women on the planet.

And since I do, so I am.

Thank you for the gift of your courage, support and kindness as part of this community. May 2010 bring more green to your plate, more awe in your raw and all the love and abundance you can possibly create for yourself.

My very best wishes for your new beginnings,

Tera

p.s.

If you’re just coming across this for the first time, all you need to do is be signed up to our 7-day detox or Health in High Heels newsletter and you’ll receive daily notification about our 21-Day Challenge! Happy to have you join us for this adventure.

By Joyce Wiatroski

“Life is not measured by the number of breaths we take, but by the moments that take our breath away.”   — Maya Angelou

The Sierra Club’s Daily Ray of Hope sends wonderful uplifting images with thought provoking quotations.  Many speak directly to my heart.  Maya Angelou’s quote above is one of them.

It’s reminiscent of the sentiment evoked in: “It’s not the years in your life; but the life in your years.”
We remember and bask in the memories of the high points in life.  Our goal should be to fill our lives with high points!
Doll’s recent blog post about her successful 7 Day Detox arrived about the same time as the Maya Angelou quotation.  The dynamite combination resonated deeply with me as I reflected on how my level of happiness and contentment has reached new levels since I too, took part in The Raw Divas 7 Day Detox Program in July of 2007.

The journey has been a learning experience with constant adjustments.  But the taste of high energy and clear headedness that I experienced in those first seven days of the program was the pivotal impetus I needed to begin the exciting journey of making major changes in my diet and subsequently my lifestyle.

I don’t have a dramatic, personal testimony.
Losing weight wasn’t a particularly high priority.
But believe me, going from a chunky size 14 to a svelte size 10 is pretty exciting when you’re 70 years old!  I had no major health issues to overcome.
Yet, how surprised I was to see my blood pressure drop to even better levels, my sugar readings are low for my age, and my cholesterol and triglycerides are impressive enough to make my primary care physician ask me, “what are you doing?”

The big payoff for me has been the high energy level, the clear headedness and most importantly, the deep happiness and contentment I experience.  A calm, serene aura envelops me and I enjoy all the hours of everyday.

I live alone on a tight budget, yet I have a full, fun-filled life.

Having vibrant abundant health, filled with energy, looking forward to each new day, far surpasses anything money can buy.

For those of us who now live in an empty nest, or are just facing ‘singlehood’ again, or are perhaps newly retired, I encourage you to fill your days with uplifting thoughts, engage in activities that will get you out with new people, explore some new eating habits, dip your toes into a short detox program to get a taste of how great it is be filled with energy and an unimaginable lightness of spirit.

Above all else, count your blessings, reflect in the times “that took your breath away”, develop habits and relationships that will add to those precious experiences.

And let’s continue to manifest. . .

Like fine wine, women grow better with thyme.

(Doll’s weekly thoughts on goals, starting over and success!)

How do you climb the mountain? ….  One step at a time!!

You know that’s the best way to manage most of our goals and commitments: One step at a time.

On my journey towards 100% raw I jumped in with both feet and said yes I can do this only to find on day 3 or 4 that that was a bigger commitment than I could realistically manage.  This is what I’ve done and could work for you too!

• Plan your menus ahead of time (The Raw Divas have wonderful Monthly Menu Planners complete with shopping lists)
• Take it one meal at a time (if breakfast is raw, see how lunch feels then dinner etc)
• One full day raw?  Try 2 and so on….Soon you’ll have more meals totally raw than not!

No matter what task you have in front of you, by breaking it down it soon becomes manageable. Do you have a huge job facing you that is overwhelming?  Is there something you’ve been putting off?  Take today to plan for your success and you will soon enjoy the view from the top of your mountain.

Next week:  Thinking in the present tense

With love and hugs,

Doll
Cozy Coaching Hostess

PS: Don’t miss Tonight’s Call with Angela Elliott at 9pm EST when we’ll be discussing Angela’s Holiday Menu Planner

By Joyce Wiatroski

Many of us single seniors are apt to find ourselves eating the same old salad day after day.  I often hear, “I don’t like to fuss.”  “I can’t be bothered.”  “I don’t know what to have.”

Sadly, many of us starting out on a raw food- vegan lifestyle, eat the same thing day in and day out and quickly find it boring or not quite satisfying.  It becomes a great excuse to cheat a bit.  Then it becomes easier to cheat a bit more and a little bit more, until we’re back to our old ways of eating cooked, dead foods, despite our best intentions.

Everyone new to the lifestyle needs direction along with a workable plan.  And we don’t have to be new to the lifestyle to benefit from having a surefire, yet simple meal plan that offers interesting variety to please the palate while giving our body the nutrition it needs.

Here are six tips that I’ve found really help to make the transition to a raw foods lifestyle fun, easy and fulfilling.

• Plan a weekly menuI start on the day when the grocery store flyers come out in the newspaper.
  I plan meals based on which produce items are on sale and find that buying from the rotating sales items ensures variety while eliminating a strain on my budget.

  I plan my morning green smoothies around the fruit that’s on sale, and make a list
  of  3 or 4 different leafy greens to rotate during the week— both in smoothies and for salads. Then based on the veggies that are on sale, I plan how they will be used and check to see what else I’ll need to go with them.

• Keep basic produce on hand This helps to make meal preparation simple yet satisfying.
  A variety of leafy greens, cucumbers, garlic, celery, carrots, apples,
  bananas, parsley, cilantro and tomatoes are basics for me.  I replenish weekly as
  each gets low. Choose your favorites and keep well stocked
• Set aside a block of timeWhether it’s an hour or two or a whole morning, take the time to wash and prep the produce and to make dressings and sauces to have on hand when meal time rolls around. This is time well spent.
• Enlarge your repertoireTry a new dish with a familiar fruit or vegetable.  At a minimum, try your hand at two new recipes a month using fruits or vegetables you often use, but use them in different ways. Check out raw food recipes in books from the library, from raw food websites or watch some accomplished chefs prepare simple veggie dishes on YouTube.  I’ve found that simply “googling” an item gives me more choices than I can use!  There’s a raft of raw food instruction on the internet. Don’t forget to share and learn with other raw foodies in the Powder Room or other forums.
• Vary those veggiesTry an unusual fruit or an unfamiliar vegetable.  Learn about its nutrient content and check out different ways to use it. Talk with the produce manager or the grower at the farmer’s market.  I’ve also been inspired by browsing through un-cook books by gourmet chefs and watching how-to videos on YouTube.
• Keep a food diary or how-to folderWhen you find a dish that you really like, be sure to document how
  you made it, or print out the instructions and add to a folder of favorites.
  It won’t take long to build a short list of special treats — one of mine is Angela Elliot’s Satay Sauce. I think Angela’s great book, Alive in Five is a kitchen must.

Here’s an example of prep time based on recent produce purchases:

Besides berries, fruit and leafy greens, I bought corn on the cob, zucchini, green beans, cabbage, broccoli and plump beefsteak tomatoes with the intention to use them to provide some tasty main courses and side dishes.

I spent a little over two hours in the kitchen prepping the veggies and making two sauces and a salsa.  Now, along with green juices, green smoothies, fruit salads and big bowl savory salads, these extras are ready and waiting to give variety and interest to the week’s meals.

Here’s what I did:

• Husk and decob 2 ears of corn.
  The corn will be used in salads.
• Head, tail, wash and blanch green beans. Ready to make:
  Cabbage/onion/green bean salad with satay sauce.
• Peel and spiral cut 3 zucchini into angel hair pasta.
  Tossed with a little olive oil and stored covered, these keep well in the
  fridge for a couple days. The spiral cut zucchini can be served as pasta
  with marinara sauce and fresh basil and at another meal, as a Thai dish, with minced cilantro and Satay sauce.
• Wash and cut broccoli into florets.  Peel, then slice the stems.
  Make broccoli salad with red onion, raisins, pine nuts and
  Satay sauce.
• Make Salsa Fresca (diced tomatoes, onion, jalepeño, cilantro and lime juice.)
  Great snack with flax crackers or add to a green leafy salad.
• Make a simple raw Marina Sauce* in blender.
• Make Satay Sauce*.

*See Alive in Five for directions for both sauces.

Two hours of simple prep work provides a fridge filled with interesting food.

Eating a variety of living foods provides more than super nutrition.  It’s fun, easy and very satisfying.  Living food is more than a bowl of Romaine.  Though I have to admit, a big crisp juicy green leaf wrapped around a ripe banana sure makes a wonderful snack!

Eating living foods, enjoying each meal, preparing it with love, sharing it with family and friends contributes to the enjoyment we experience in life while adding to our overall well-being. Don’t miss out!  Make a plan!

As you continue to manifest . . .

Like fine wine, women grow better with thyme. 

Joyce Wiatroski is the wit and wisdom found on the foodiefumblings blog.  You can watch for her contributions on the Diva blog on Tuesdays.

(Doll’s weekly thoughts on goals, starting over and success!)

To continue from last weeks blog post on “Keeping on track” I’m going to take a few moments here to talk about ways that we motivate or reward ourselves.
I had a great chat last night with some ladies during our Cozy Coaching Call .

Here are their ideas for great rewards:

Help with the household chores!

• Have someone do your laundry
• Have someone do the grocery shopping

Personal pampering!

• New hair style
• Manicure/pedicure
• Facial
• Massage

Personal time!

• Horseback riding
• Special time with family
• Relax with a favorite book
• Bubble bath

These are all terrific ideas!

Nick, my dear husband, is going to shop at the discount store and buy 20-30 dollar items of things that I’d like; bring them home and wrap them as special gifts. When I reach a daily goal, I open a present. I love opening presents so this is exciting for me and definitely motivating! If I left it to myself to purchase something it would never happen.

On a simpler level, for each day that I’m RAW I’m putting a star on the calendar. The star is a small thing but allows me to look and see my progress.

How do you reward yourself? Do you have nifty tricks to keep you going whatever the task is? Are there little games you play with yourself to help you cross the finish line?

I’d love to hear what you do to stay motivated!

Next week we’ll look at setting attainable goals.

Make this week special. You deserve a reward!

With love and warm hugs,
Doll (Cozy Coaching Hostess)

I hope you’ll entertain this little intrusion as I’ve got something to say. Sometimes a girl’s gotta pick up her megaphone and make a bit of noise about the things she believes in.
This is my time.

Last week, I met a woman who had given up on her health.

After 19 years of struggling with Crohns disease and being told to eat more white rice and drink more milk, she was sick and tired of being sick and tired. She paid big bucks to be seen by the “top” doctor for Crohns in the city. He told her to avoid fiber, eat white bread and cheese. She took immune suppressing drugs and went to the bathroom more times in one day than most of us go in a week. When she heard about me, she figured it would be another fruitless encounter with promise, but no possibility.

She was wrong.

I’ll tell you what happened in a minute, but first I want to let you know that one of the biggest reasons I do what I do, is because when I walk in the street and see people plagued by illnesses that do NOT need to exist in the first place, I ache inside.

I want to DO something, CHANGE something, SAY something loud enough that people will hear it and wake up to the fact that life is not always as it appears.

People are told their illnesses are “genetic” or “hereditary” and that there’s nothing they can do so, “Line up at the counter and pop another pill, Jack!”
I’m not saying genetics don’t play a role in health, I’m just saying you shouldn’t sublimate your health to someone else’s opinion that you can’t do anything about it.

You CAN do something about it! You can ALWAYS do something about it.

There ARE solutions, and chances are they are simple, easy and right under the tip of your nose. But don’t give up on trying to find them, just because you’ve bumped into a few posts along your path. Keep going. Keep looking.

You’ll find them.

Lies require layers of elaborate explanations. They are complicated things.

Truth is simple. It just works. It makes sense.

People accept pain, discomfort, illness and fatigue as a part of their every day lives. It’s not “true” that life has to be this way. There are solutions and YOU can do something about it, whatever “it” is!

Heard any of these names circulating around your local “coffee shop”?

• Candida
• Eczema
• Psoriasis
• Weight gain
• Bloating
• Water retention
• ADD
• Autism
• Brain fog
• Mood disorders
• Bipolar
• Depression
• Anxiety
• IBS
• Leaky gut syndrome
• Crohns
• Thyroid and hormonal imbalances.

I have seen, heard stories and received countless letters by people who have overcome ALL of these conditions and a whole lot more as a result of ONE THING.

But that one thing is so misunderstood, so mystified, and so couched in confusion, that my dear friend and superhero Dr. Ritamarie Loscalzo and I are going to set the record straight in a series of 4 teleseminars happening throughout the month of November.

ANYONE you know who suffers from ANY of the above conditions needs to be on these calls.

Sign up for the Seminars

You don’t have to pay a dime. You just have to invest some time, hope and a willingness to learn while Dr. Ritamarie and I get up on our soap boxes and share some things that we KNOW will change the lives of anyone who hears it. Everyone is invited. It doesn’t matter how sick, fat, tired you feel, there is SOMETHING in these calls that could turn your life around, so sign up and tune in. The calls are starting this Thursday:

Sign up for the Seminars

It doesn’t take more than your name and email address.

We won’t chase you down to sell vacuum parts. We just want you to help us help the world. If you know anyone who is suffering with ANY of those conditions, or if someone came to mind while you read this letter, then send this to them.

I don’t know what it’s going to take to make this world the place I KNOW it can be, but I’m going to be frizzy haired and frazzled at the end of my days for having done my best to make it happen.

I appreciate your help in getting this information out there. My megaphone can reach a lot farther with your help.

Thanks for listening and spreading this around. It means a lot.

Love and red headed determination,

Tera

P.S. By the way, the calls will be recorded, so if you can’t attend the live version, we’ll make the recording available for you. All you have to do is sign up, we’ll send you the details right away.

Sign up for the Seminars

P.P.S. Oh my! I almost forgot to tell you about the woman that I met last week. I gave her a whole list of foods I thought would help her and some suggestions based on the people I’ve seen overcome the condition.

24 hours later, she was a COMPLETELY different person.  She said she’d not felt so much hope, so much health in almost 20 years. She wept at the fact that a perfect stranger seemed to have the solutions and offered them for free, when NO ONE else, not even the most highly paid doctors had any idea what to do.

Kinda puts things into perspective, doesn’t it.

(Doll’s weekly thoughts on goals, starting over and success!)

Monday is the most popular day to re-start programs.  This goes for exercise, diets and other self-improvement ideas.  We’ve all been there.  We start on Monday.  Then, by Friday, we wonder what happened to take us so far off track.

Here are some thoughts to help all of us enjoy our successes at the end of the Week.

• Begin at the finish line!

  I am very happy with the work I do with The Raw Divas.  My goal is to be a successful businesswoman. I need to set the stage.  Last week Nick helped me buy and put together this great office set up.  There is no reason to wait until I am successful.  The time is now!

• Plan for success

  In my planning for success I’ve placed only those things that are necessary for my work on and around my desk.  I decided that distractions where not helping me to get the work done. You all know what I mean.  Dishes and nick-knacks do not belong.

• Set an attainable goal

  I’d love to set a goal of writing 3 hours every day.  That’s just not possible for me. But, if I set a goal of 15 min, twice a day I can get the work done and feel like I’ve accomplished something.

• Reward yourself

  I work really well with tangible gifts.  Finish a project?  Try a spa treatment, new scarf or even a star on your calendar.  Make it fun!

• Think in the present tense

  No more do I say, “I will finish this on time” or “I will have this piece published someday”.  I make statements for today.  I am writing 15 minutes today.  My published article is informative and fun.  Be positive and specific.

These 5 points can be used in terms of your food planning, exercise schedule, or your over all health and happiness.  Living a Raw Food Lifestyle is planned for and something to be enjoyed.  See yourself as healthy, fit, glowing and filled with energy!

Make this Monday your special Do-Over day!  Create a commitment or goal that works for you.  Sweet Diva, you can take on the world.  One do-over at a time!

With love and warm hugs

Doll (from her new office)

By Jenn Givler

You’ve felt the niggles. The urges. The nudges. You know it’s time to start. You know you should be doing something. But every time you think about starting, something comes up. Some other plan, some interruption, some unexpected obstacle.

I’m talking about exercising. In the midst of being a significant other, a mom, a daughter, a friend and a professional, it can be tough to think about fitting in one more thing, or to even just take the plunge.

The fact is, exercise is good for you and your body. Among the commonly stated health benefits (increased cardio vascular health, increased energy, lower risk of multiple diseases, etc…), exercise also has some amazing not-commonly-heard-about benefits.

For example, exercising helps your body eliminate toxins. It also increases the good feelings you have about yourself and your positive self-talk. Exercise is wonderful for your libido. It helps you think clearly, and it gives you stamina for your all of your regular daily activities. It also improves sleep.

Even knowing all of this can make us stutter and stammer when it comes to starting a new exercise program.

Here are 3 simple ways to get started:

• Buddy up.  Find someone that will truly kick you into gear if you start making excuses. And, be sure that your buddy has the same mind-set and similar goals for exercise that you do. Together, create a plan that you can both easily stick to and go for it.
• Find the time.  Find a time each and every day that will be used for nothing other than exercise. At first, it’s going to be tough to stick to that time. Your mind is going to have all sorts of reasons why you can’t. And you’re going to make up excuses. But, I promise, if you stick to a regular time for at least 2 weeks, it will become a new routine, and you’ll actually hate to miss your exercise time.
• Keep it simple.  To get aerobic benefits, you don’t have to beat yourself to a pulp. This is something that is echoed in the Body Enlightenment System.

Walking at a moderate pace for 20 to 30 minutes a day is the perfect way to start moving.

To know that you’re truly getting benefit from the movement, make sure you’re winded (that it’s not easy to have a conversation, or that you’re breathing heavier),  and that you feel like you’re really working.
Inertia is defined as “an object at rest stays at rest unless acted on by an outside force.” For those of us needing to start something, inertia can be our biggest rival.
But, once you get going and get into a new routine, it’s easy to build a great new momentum in the right direction.

Start simply, find a buddy, pick a time and go for it.

**Jenn Givler is a fitness and wellness coach. She helps busy women break their fitness hiatus, and shows them how to fit fitness into a busy schedule. You don’t have to be a fitness buff, or live at the gym to feel healthy, fit and strong. Check out Jenn’s web site for exercise ideas, recipes, and insight: JGivlerFitness.com

By Joyce Wiatroski

Saturday — a quick trip to the downtown library, a building crammed with knowledge and entertainment as well as a daytime refuge to many homeless souls. Then off to explore a new outdoor market.

I love the city.
Can’t imagine being away from the intoxicating smell of exhaust fumes, the cacophony of autos, sirens and church bells chiming the hour. After many a rainy Saturday, the sky is Florida blue, the sun shines benignly, tempered by a soft breeze and low humidity.

Early April paradise!

The produce the farmers parade looks pretty sad, but then the merchants don’t appear to be farmers. Wilted herbs, stunted red peppers nestled next to overgrown green cucumbers and giant, seed-filled zucchinis. Suddenly I’m surprised by perfect plump mushrooms bedded beside crisp, green snow peas. My mouth waters as I imagine the enticing aroma of the peas and mushrooms sautéing with sweet onions, grated ginger and a dash of roasted sesame oil. A few dollars change hands. Supper is solved.

As I sit surveying the scene, my senses are pleasantly piqued with a wonderful mix of orchid candles and handmade patchouli soap. I suspect I will have to have some of each before I leave.

Indulged myself! Hazelnut iced coffee and a warm fresh, buttery croissant lightly stuffed with caramelized onions and topped with poppy seeds. Probably 1,000 calories or more. Better walk an extra mile or two today.

Live music across the way lifts the spirit. The fountains in the center of the square are bubbling up and a few adventurous children dart in and out. I wonder where I put the slides I took here a couple of years ago for a class assignment. Great candid shots of a group of kids from a foster home clowning around while cooling off in the fountains on a very hot, humid Sunday afternoon. Worth looking for.

Lots of flowers and plants. Gorgeous orchids. Actually, the flowers and plants steal the show. It would be nice to have local, organic produce for sale. There are interesting artisanal breads and colorful ethnic salsas and a couple of coffee stands run by a mother and son with prices to put Starbucks to shame.

Young and old, fat and thin, black and white. The yuppies, the guppies, and even the old mullets, swarm around the square competing for walking space with a group of foraging pigeons. Little red legs, iridescent green neck feathers and amber beady eyes pecking away at whatever crumbs they find upon the ground. I pull apart small pieces from the end of my croissant and toss them out to the avian crowd. They come from clear across the square for a few small morsels of bread, then rise en masse, as they leave for another crumb sighting, startling dozing seniors resting on the scattered benches.

I reluctantly gather my things and prepare to leave, but not before I take one more turn around the square.

Finding these notes from six years ago reminded me how easy it is to find pleasure in the little things in life regardless of social standing, finances or location. Whether living in a big city, medium-sized town, or tiny village; single, married, widowed, divorced, young or old. We need to get outside and enjoy the riches Mother Nature offers. Stroll in a park, hike in the woods, check listings for art festivals, outdoor fairs and craft shows. Soak up the beauty in life — it’s one of the healthiest things we can do for ourselves. Get some fresh air and sunshine.

Breathe deeply, smile widely and continue to manifest . . .

Like fine wine, women grow better with thyme.

** Joyce Wiatroski is the wit and wisdom found on foodiefumblings blog. You can watch for her contributions on the Diva blog on Tuesdays.

By Joyce Wiatroski

“Almost everything you do will seem insignificant, but it is very important that you do it.” —Gandhi

As I thought about these simple words I was struck by the depth of wisdom they impart.

When I take into consideration the magnificence of the universe on one hand, and the immensity of the challenges that face mankind on the other: securing world peace, protecting the environment, eradicating disease and alleviating poverty, I wonder how anything I do will make a difference.

Gandhi’s admonition that it’s important to do whatever little we can, resonates a simple truth. A cumulative effort will produce dramatic results.

Think about it.

• I can contribute to world peace by starting in my own neighborhood. By reaching out to a new neighbor, I’ve made an acquaintance out of a stranger.

• I’ve learned to smile at the homeless and greet handicapped people I pass on the street, instead of avoiding eye contact. When they smile back I no longer feel uncomfortable in their presence. Maybe their day will be a bit warmer and brighter, too.

• With a concern for protecting the environment, five years ago I stopped using plastic or paper bags when I shop. I’ve accumulated a collection of canvas tote bags and like a piece of plastic we often hear advertised, I “never leave home without it”.

• Even though I live on a very limited budget, I’ve made a small monthly commitment to an organization that helps the homeless—The Salvation Army Bed and Bread Club.
There are many other worthwhile organizations that would appreciate a few dollars regularly.

• Because I love and listen to my local FM station, practically 24-7, I support it with a nominal monthly donation. My small amount, added with the contribution of others, makes non-commercial news reports, classical music and mind-expanding programs possible for the whole community.

• I subscribe to the local newspaper, along with the RSS feed for a major metropolitan newspaper, giving me a different perspective and assuring that I’m aware of what’s happening in the world at large, as well as in my own backyard. Apathy is dangerous. We must take an interest in our world locally and globally.

• I subscribe to a variety of health, nutrition, and raw food related blogs and websites. With the marvels of modern technology, I take advantage of interviews, seminars and podcasts that inform and direct me as I pursue a healthy lifestyle.

• I keep up with issues that affect me personally and take note of subjects that pertain to family and friends as well. This allows me to forward information and encouragement to assist others on the road to abundant vibrant health.

• I take full responsibility for my own health and well-being. No one cares more about me than me. No one cares more about you than you. Never forget that.

Many of the things I do seem so insignificant. But in retrospect, I see how important
it is for each of us to do small things to make our neighborhoods a better place, to help our communities blossom, to heal relationships, to work on building healthier bodies.

If we adopt the rationale behind Gandhi’s quote, and do simple things consistently, the outcome may well have a far-reaching and lasting impact.

These individually insignificant actions will exponentially build a better world.

It’s up to us to make it happen. Let’s continue to manifest . . .

Like fine wine, women grow better with thyme.

Joyce Wiatroski is the wit and wisdom found on foodiefumblings blog. You can watch for her contributions on the Diva blog on Tuesdays.