I’ve always been one to dwell on memories. Ask Ryan about some of my family get togethers–it’s full of “do you remember when Chelsea…” or “that was just like that time when Ashleigh…” or “Grandpa Pa always said…” After taking a StrengthsFinder™ quiz at work I learned why: one of my main strengths as a person is context. This means that “people strong in the Context theme enjoy thinking about the past. They understand the present by researching its history.”

Context is very important because it not only helps you understand events of the past but also how to use that knowledge to handle current issues (the whole “history repeats itself” adage). I’ve always enjoyed history and geography, especially when it comes to the Bible, and I have found that I understand the big picture better when I can place the individual stories and details in their respective regions, cultures and times. I use this knowledge not just for Bible study and teaching, but for solving problems at my job, when documenting a process to improve or even when gardening. History and geography are indispensable to making our lives better now and in the future.

Unfortunately, it seems like the rest of our American culture in general is forgetting even simple history lessons. Lately we’ve seen politicians reinventing Paul Revere’s ride or the location of the Shot Heard ‘Round the World, “fourth graders unable to say why Abraham Lincoln was an important figure” (NY Times) and remarkably “less than half of eighth-graders knew that Islam originated in what is now Saudi Arabia” (Wall Street Journal). I realize that our current economic crisis is bad, but what I foresee is that our future will be destroyed by those who don’t have any historical or geographical context in which to make decisions.

Tonight we were browsing through books at a Barnes & Noble and noticed that they had rearranged a bit. As we went back to the furthest corner of the store we happened to notice that all the history books, geography and Bibles had been relocated there. The three subjects that most Americans are worst at–now in the very back of the store.

Fasting is usually done with water only or a partial fast. I just finished a 3-day juice fast, also called “juice feasting.” Juice feasting is different in that you drink fresh, unpasteurized juices in addition to water and herbal tea. Because the fiber is removed, juice feasting is said to give your digestive system a break so that your body can focus on cleansing and healing using all the fresh live enzymes and vitamins from the juice. I read raw foodist Angela Stokes A Juice Feaster’s Handbook and her juice feasting e-journal, nutritionist Natalia Rose’s Raw Food Detox Diet and also read up on Dr. Andrew Weil’s website for guidelines and recipes.

You can’t buy fresh, unpasteurized juice at the store, unless you go to a juice bar. We have very few around here and they are not always cost effective, so I made all the juices at home using a Breville Juice Fountain. Each day it took about 30 minutes to wash and trim all the greens, fruits, and vegetables for juicing, another 30 minutes to run them through the juicer and then another 45 for clean up (I rinsed all the juicer components after each juice).

Day 1 – Saturday, February 5, 2011
Total cost $26, 1.25 gallons of juice

• • Juice of 1/2 pineapple ($1.50)
• • Juice of 1/2 watermelon ($4.00)
• • Green Lemonade: kale, celery, apples, lemons ($6.20)
• • Spicy Skin Saver: grapes, watercress, radishes, cucumber, ginger ($8.15)
• • Hot Pink: pineapple, strawberries, beet root, ginger ($6)
• • Water
• • Herbal tea (Tulsi peppermint)

Day 1 Juices

Going into this I was really expecting that the juice wouldn’t be very filling and I’d be hungry all day. I spread the juices out throughout the day (in place of normal solid food meals) and after the fourth quart of juice I was so full I could hardly finish off the fifth quart! I felt great in the morning and had lots of energy. I stayed around the house and didn’t do any strenuous activities, but even so I got a little sleepy and developed a headache in the afternoon.

Day 2 – Sunday, February 6, 2011 (Superbowl Sunday – hard day for a juice feast!)
Total cost $28, 1.375 gallons of juice

• • Juice of  8 cups grapes ($11.50 – yikes!)
• • Juice of 1/4 watermelon ($2.00)
• • Green Lemonade: kale, celery, apples, lemons ($6.20)
• • Thai Green: kale, cilantro, pineapple, limes ($5)
• • Fruit Spice: pineapple, pears, ginger ($3.15)
• • Water
• • Herbal tea (Tulsi peppermint)

A day's worth of produce

I’m happy to report that I’ve noticed some swelling go down in my fingers; on Saturday I woke up with a new nodule on my right pinkie joint, a bright red lumpy knot that made it hard to bend my finger. By today it had disappeared! That usually doesn’t happen–usually, once a new swelling starts it’s downhill from there as other places start to swell, too. Not this time!

Day 3 – Monday, February 7, 2011
Total cost $19, 0.875 gallons of juice (I meant to also have a Green Lemonade today, but didn’t have time)

• • Juice of 10 oranges ($3.30)
• • Juice of 1/2 pineapple ($1.50)
• • Cucumber Mint Cooler: cucumbers, celery, mint, limes ($6.30)
• • Spicy Skin Saver: grapes, watercress, radishes, cucumber, ginger ($8.15)
• • Water
• • Herbal tea (Tulsi peppermint)

I didn’t wake up with knee pain today! In fact, for the first time since November, I ran. More like jogged, but I did it on three separate occasions today. My knees have been either to swollen to bend or too painful to step down hard, so jogging is pretty huge. I’ve noticed that my skin is starting to clear up, too.

Day 4 – Tuesday, February 8, 2011, fast break day
Total cost $25, 1.25 gallons of juice

• • Juice of 10 oranges ($3.30)
• • Juice of 1/4 watermelon ($2.00)
• • Green Lemonade: kale, celery, apples, lemons ($6.20)
• • Hot Pink: pineapple, strawberries, beet root, ginger ($6)
• • Spicy Skin Saver: grapes, watercress, radishes, cucumber, ginger ($8.15)
• • Water
• • Herbal tea (Tulsi peppermint)
• • Prunes, soaked in water (also drank the soak water)

I broke the fast by eating a few meals of soaked prunes followed by a colonic at Body Strategies. I’m slowly reintroducing foods back in my diet, making sure they (1) are mostly plants: greens, fruits and vegetables, (2) are whole foods (as close to their original state as possible–minimal to no processing or cooking), and (3) are properly combined meals (fruit by itself, don’t mix meats with starches, etc.).

Overall I had a good experience with this juice fast and would highly recommend it to anyone needing a “reset.” I noticed that on the first two days my willpower started to waiver in the evenings. I had some hunger pangs and I was really craving a cheeseburger that first day! By the third day I was really enjoying the different tastes of the juices and wasn’t really interested in solid food. I did have a few lessons learned: beets stain, grapes are really expensive, always buy more produce than you think you’ll need, and make all the juice for each day in the morning so that you’re already prepared for the day (instead of waiting until the last minute, or going all day without and then trying to cram it all in at 10pm).

Grandma Betty's Kansas Day Cookies

Happy birthday, Kansas!

Kansas joined the Union as a free state during the Civil War on January 29, 1861. Originally home to the Kansa tribe, the land was claimed mostly by the Louisiana purchase. Settlers began pouring into the state in 1854 until now we have a population of 2.7 million people.

Kansas has such a rich history and is an integral part of our United States, from our native tribes, Civil War history, the Santa Fe Trail, the beautiful Flint Hills, Cosmosphere space history and agriculture, to our famous residents like Amelia Earhart or Dwight Eisenhower, or to landmark decisions like Brown vs. Board of Education.

To celebrate this great state, go do something uniquely Kansas today! Go visit the State Capitol Building or the Kansas State Historical Society (where I volunteered with Grandma Betty when I was six!) in Topeka. If you can’t make it to Topeka today, go eat at a local restaurant, visit a local museum, watch The Wizard of Oz, or just go outside to enjoy our unseasonal January weather! The entire state will be celebrating all year long, so be sure to check out these sites to get ideas on places to visit or things to do in Kansas: Wichita Eagle coverage, Kansas 150 official site, or Travel Kansas.

After dinner there were games of ladder ball and volleyball, and then singing! A group congregated around the gentleman in the cowboy hat, pictured below. He is a fantastic cowboy singer, and taught/sang us the history behind our state song Home on the Range. There were a few sing along songs, too.

The fireworks show happened in between rain showers, but didn’t last too long! When we first arrived the all-day downpour had finally let up, but only to start again right as fireworks began. Everyone relocated into the shed for cover from the rain to watch a few more fireworks before the wicks were put out by the rain.

It was a great evening–thank you Tristan and Leslie for inviting us!

Kansas is more than just sunflowers and The Wizard of Oz. The state has been home to presidents, astronauts, entertainers, and industry pioneers. It contains the world’s largest tallgrass prairie, landscapes with badlands-like canyons, and wildlife areas that attract over 300 species of migrating bird from all over the country. Kansas has a rich pioneer history, with the Santa Fe, Chisholm, and Oregon Trails running through the state, where wagon ruts can still be seen today! Our state was also part of the Civil War and has scars to show for it; there are graves, memorials for battles, and several forts still standing that tell the history.

This year Ryan and I are on a quest to visit the entire state and share its landmarks, historic places, and people with you. We’re using the Kansas Official Visitors Guide as our guidebook and will go to every region in the state: eastern wooded hills, Flint Hills, central prairie, and the western high plains. We’ll blog about each visit in the hopes of encouraging more Kansans to go out and see what their state has to offer.

Our first stop: Wichita. I can’t wait for you to join us!

Continuing the drive (including one particular curve when we had to ford a stream in our little Ford Fusion), we came to a little secluded beach on which Sam and I took the opportunity to take off our shoes and socks and wade in the ocean a bit. Having done this, both Sam and I have at least stuck either a hand or a foot in both sides of the Atlantic and both sides of the Pacific Oceans. The water was very cool, so I was not too sad that we had both forgotten our swim trunks.
At about lunch time, we found a small hill (mountain, by Kansas standards) that we decided to climb and have a picnic lunch. We had stopped by the grocer before heading out on our journey and picked up some stuff for our picnic, so we put it all in a backpack and headed up the hill. It was an easy 10-15 minute ascent, and God treated us with the best spot for a picnic we could ever hope to find. We were disturbed once by a very noisy group of American tourists from an Irish Bus Tour, which made us appreciate all the more the fact that we were exploring the island with nothing but each other and our little guide book.

We concluded our driving tour at the ruins of an 12th century Romanesque church. As the English was expanding its empire and tightening its grip on all its domain, it replaced the little monastic settlements all over the island that dated back to St. Patrick and St. Brendan with more of the traditional Roman style church building for their Church of England to prosper in the rural areas.

Ending the day with a slight sunburn but with some great memories! We’re off to collect our laundry which we left at the cleaners this morning on our way out of town. (We only packed one week’s worth of clothing for our trip!)