give it to me raw

The other night during bible study we were talking how we bring up things with our spouse.  How do we reflect with our spouse or tell them something that may be bothering us.  Now, you may be just hunky-dory about life and never have any problems but I  know that I like order and have to gently remind him where the dirty clothes hamper is.  

Some were saying they want their spouse to just "rip off the band-aid" and others wanted it to be brought up more lovingly.  I know that the Mr. can tell it to me straight or beat around the bush, but I love that we have raw love-that we are open and honest to one another and keep each other accountable.  We want the other to be the best they can be, we want to be raw with each other, that's what marriage is.  He knows me better than I know myself at times, the good and the bad, the raw me...

with no make-up on

with morning breath

with smelly workout clothes on

with a smile on my face after he's gotten me to laugh after being cranky

with 1,000 things on my mind

with "perfectionist" tendencies

There are lots of things I like raw

Like our marriage and friendship.  My friendships.  My relationship with God.  

And my food....

I'm not sure when it happened, but there has been a big transition in my eating and health and I will definitely blog about it one of these days, but I enjoy whole and natural eating.  Raw eating is good for snacks and some meals, and the rest of my cooking I try to make pure and natural.  It just makes me feel good, in fact I'd say amazing inside.  I've noticed that my health has improved too, I haven't been sick as often and I have more energy.  

One of the most surprising things to me is that eating clean, whole, and natural doesn't cost more of my time or money.  I have found ways that we stay on budget and I enjoy spending my time cooking to better our bodies.  When I was younger I would eat trail mix like it was going out of style, telling myself proudly that I was being "healthy".  Now, I wasn't eating a cheeseburger or a burrito so it was some-what healthy.  But, lets just talk about the salt and sugar I was consuming, especially the Costco trail mix (that was my love affair)!

Making my own trail mix is super simple and I control what goes inside of it AND my body.  It helps me control how much sugar and salt I'm getting, and it is incredibly easy!  I love mixing it up and adding new types of nuts and fruit to it as well.  Basically, I walk through the bulk section at Sprouts and pick out what looks good to me at the time.  Each time I make it, it's always different.  

To make the perfect trail mix you need a mixture of the following:

nuts (preferably raw)

dried fruit

seeds

chocolate :) YES!

In my mix this week is:

raw almonds

raw pepitas

sunflower sees

raisins

jumbo golden raisins

Put all of your ingredients inside of your favorite mason jar and give it a good shake.  I keep one jar at home and one at work to snack on.  The husband always seems to find all of the almonds and pick them out at home, so I keep my secret stash at work :)

I typically like to add in mini chocolate chips but was sadly out of them.  My other favorite combination is:

raw almonds

raw walnuts

pistachios

dried cranberries

pepitas

chocolate chips

Check out two more recipes I'm dying to try out here and here!